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Sir Tiieodouk and .Master Martin.— /* rt(;e 74. 


Frontispiece. 


MASTER MARTIN 


BY 

/ 

EMMA MARSHALL 

AUTHOR OP 

“THE CLOSE OP ST. CHRISTOPHER’S,” “SILVER CHIMES/’ 
“SIR BENJAMIN’S BOUNTY,” ETC. ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 

103-105 South 15x11 Street 





0 



48175 

Copyright 1899 by 
George W. Jacobs & Co 


f’’ 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 





CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I. MASTER MARTIN . 

II. SURPRISES .... 

III. MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 

IV. THE STORY CIRCULATES 

V. THE TUTOR .... 

VI. THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS . 

VII. IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS . 

VIII. RESCUE .... 

IX. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST 

X. A NEW BROOM . . , 

XI. MASTER martin’s SEARCH 

XII. RESTORED .... 


PAGE 

. I 

. 12 
. 24 

. 36 

. 4 ^ 

. 58 

70 
. 83 

• 95 

. 106 

. 117 

. 129 



t 





MASTEE MAETIN 


CHAPTER I 

MASTEE MAETIN 

Twice a year a van covered with baskets and 
brooms, straw chairs and cradles, passed through 
the village of Knapton, in Norfolk, a remote 
village in a remote corner of that eastern county, 
where the keen east wind brings health and 
vitality to those who can bear its strong breath, 
but withers those who are weak and feeble as it 
rushes past them or finds its way into their 
houses. 

But there was no east in the balmy air of the 
early May-day when Mrs. Curtis’s basket-waggon 
or van was slowly passing through the seques- 
tered lanes, where the primroses studded the 
banks, and through the trees of the copses which 
bordered the road the blue hyacinths were bend- 
ing their graceful heads, and the wild anemones 

A 


2 


MASTER MARTIN 


yet lingered in patches in fluttering companies of 
fragile loveliness. 

Mrs. Curtis was a buxom woman of forty or 
fifty. I dare not tell you her age, for she never 
allowed any one to know it. It was a peculiarity 
of Mrs. Curtis, which perhaps some people you 
know may share ; and I think, if you ask me, 
every one is at liberty to say, in answer to im- 
pertinent inquiries, “I am as old as I look, and 
let that be enough.” 

Mrs. Curtis, I am bound to say, had some 
reason for not revealing her age, for she had 
taken to herself a very small and very young- 
looking husband, who might, judging by appear- 
ance, have been her son. But, as we all know, 
appearances are deceitful. 

Mr. Curtis, or Tim, as his wife always called 
him, was meek and unoffending, and one might 
almost think that he had taken the wrong vow 
when he married Mrs. Curtis! For he it was 
who added obedience to love and honour, and who 
very seldom dreamed of opposing Mrs. Curtis’s 
will. Mr. Curtis generally walked beside the 
waggon, while Mrs. Curtis sat at the door of her 
movable house on wheels. 

Through mire and mud, in rain and shine, 
Mr. Curtis patiently plodded, till they reached 


MASTER MARTIN 


3 


a village or a roadside hamlet, when his wife 
would come down the steps of the van, and, taking 
a handful of her wicker-wares, offered them for 
sale, driving a good bargain, while her husband 
was apt to let the things go, as she said, for a 
brass farthing ! 

This house on wheels was kept beautifully 
neat and tidy. Indeed, Mrs. Curtis took a great 
pride in the interior of her little dwelling. The 
wooden walls were ornamented with Christmas 
cards and “ little picters,” as she called them, in 
gilt frames. There was not wall-space enough 
to hang any large picture, except in one place, 
and that was the door opening from the living 
room into the bedroom, where Sir John Millais* 
“ Bubbles ** hung, and swung as the door opened 
or shut, and was the joy of Mrs. Curtis*s heart. 
“ Bubbles ’* had a story ; for, in the far, far past, 
when Mrs. Curtis was young and never cared to 
hide her age, there was a little boy — dear to her 
heart — who, seen through the haze of years, 
seemed to her to resemble “ Bubbles.” 

“If it costs a fortune,” she had said to Tim, 
“ I must buy that picture ; ” and buy it she did, 
and every day dusted it and bid “ Bubbles ” good- 
morning, and every night bid him good -night 
before she closed the door and vanished into her 


4 


MASTER MARTIN 


little bedroom, where her portly person left her 
husband but a small corner, fio that it was fortu- 
nate that he was so thin and spare as only to want 
a narrow space in which to sleep. 

The basket-waggon was really a very cosy 
home, and if it was sometimes pervaded by an 
“osiery” smell and was a little stuffy in hot 
weather, it was a marked contrast to the mov- 
able dwellings of gipsies and tinkers, of shows 
and travelling circuses, which it often passed on 
its way. 

Mrs. Curtis was supposed by the other inhabi- 
tants of houses on wheels to be proud and stuck 
up. And if she “passed a good-morning” to 
any of the slatternly women who happened to be 
stationed for the night in the neighbourhood, 
they said it was as if they were “ dirt under her 
feet.” A simile which, as far as the dirt is con- 
cerned, had a good deal of truth in it. 

Mrs. Curtis had very little tolerance for untidy 
ways, and she was, like her house — the pink of 
cleanliness. 

The arrival of Mrs. Curtis and her baskets and 
brooms was an event in Knapton. The children 
ran into the cottages to announce the fact to 
their mothers, and there was always an expect- 
ant group in the market-place when it was 


MASTER MARTIN 


5 


rumoured that Curtis’s van was approaching. Mrs. 
Curtis knew her best customers, and felt pretty 
sure who would want a cradle or little chair, or 
what she called “ fancy goods.” 

Some of them were very pretty — work-baskets 
with open-work handles, tables with Vandyke 
edges, and garden-chairs with patterns made in 
the seat and back with rushes twisted in and out 
with the straw. There were “ butter-baskets ” 
made of very coarse strong osier, and hampers of 
brown twigs, which were piled up in what Mrs. 
Curtis called a nest, one inside the other, the 
largest ones outside, and the smallest the last to 
come out. 

There was a general interchange of greetings 
between Mrs. Curtis and her customers. 

“ How well you do look, Mrs. Curtis, to be sure ! 
and ” 

“ I may say the same of you, Mrs. Press. What 
can I do for you to-day ? You were wanting a 
mat when I was here last autumn. Here, Tim, 
look sharp and pass down these mats with the red 
edge. Lor, don’t you want one now, Mrs. Press? 
That’s a pity, but I can show you them all the 
same.” 

The owner of the Jolly Huntsman ” now passed 
the group, and the less important inhabitants of 


6 


MASTER MARTIN 


the village made way for him. He had a mag- 
nificent order — two garden-chairs for the bowling- 
green, and a table, a washing-basket, and two 
hampers. 

While much haggling was going on, and at- 
tempts to beat down Mrs. Curtis — who entirely 
refused to be beaten down — the children on the 
outskirts of the little crowd began to raise a 
cry of — “ Here’s Master Martin ! here’s Master 
Martin! What have you done to your legs. 
Master Martin ? They are like crooked sticks. 
Old Crooked Sticks — Old ” 

The person thus greeted by gibes and jeers 
now came with a nest of coarse baskets at his 
back, and with a stout stick in his hand, on which 
he leaned heavily. As he walked he laid about 
him with fury. But his aimless blows were skil- 
fully avoided by the little urchins, and Master 
Martin, feeling he was powerless to cope with 
them, contented himself with glowering at them 
from under his beetling eyebrows, and muttering 
that he would give them a hiding when he had 
the chance. 

" Why, here’s Master Martin, I declare,” Mrs. 
Curtis said in her cheery, pleasant voice, as the 
poor little man trudged up to the van with the 
hampers at his back. “Well, I am afraid I 


MASTER MARTIN 


7 


don't want any rough baskets to-day. See,” 
Mrs. Curtis said, pointing to the roof of the 
van, “there is a lot still hanging there.” 

“These are very good strong ones, ma’am. 
I’d be glad to sell them.” 

“Well,” Mrs. Curtis said, relenting, and put- 
ting her hand into the capacious pocket of her 
white apron, and rattling the coins there as she 
did so, “what do you ask. Master Martin, for 
the lot?” 

‘‘What you please to give,” was the reply. 
“I’ve had a hardish winter — six full weeks of it 
with rheumatics.” 

“ Oh, well, here’s half-a-crown for the lot. Put 
them down. Master Martin, and, Tim, count them 
out.” 

“There’s half-a-dozen, ma’am, and thank you 
kindly.” 

One big bully in the crowd began to laugh, 
and said in an undertone to one of his com- 
panions, “Old Crooked Sticks has made a good 
bargain.” 

“What’s that you are saying, you young 
rascal?” Master Martin said in great wrath. 
“ I’ll have at you.” 

A mocking laugh was the reply, as the boy 
scuttled off down the village. 


8 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ It's a crying shame how they tease the poor 
fellow,” Mrs. Curtis said, as the little old man 
limped away. 

“It's only that set led on by Ted Cross,” a 
woman standing by said. “He is a plague to 
the village, and I only wish we could get rid of 
him ; he sets the boys up to mischief. Why, 
here's the little Squire coming, I declare.” 

And now the crowd collected round the van 
dispersed, or rather moved aside, as a fair-haired 
child of seven or eight years old, attended by a 
respectable woman, known in Knapton as Mrs. 
Longhurst, came up to Mrs. Curtis. 

“How do you do?” the boy said, taking off 
his cap, as he would have done to the Hector’s 
wife, or to the grand Lady Burroughes who lived 
at Sandilands Lodge. “How do you do, Mrs. 
Curtis ? I am very well, thank you ! I am 
come to buy a little weenie basket for Nana, and 
a big one for myself, to take down to the beach, 
you know, when I go to Overstrand. How 
much will the two come to? I hope not more 
than a shilling and two threepenny bits, which 
I have saved up on purpose to pay for them.” 

“Dear bless your little heart. Sir Theodore! 
You shall have the baskets, and welcome, for 
what you choose to pay for them.” 


MASTER MARTIN 


9 

“Oh, thank you,** the child said, shaking his 
head; “but I wish to pay what every one else 
would pay — not less, you know. Nana wants a 
little basket to hold her reels of cotton. Don’t 
you, Nana ? ** 

“No, my dear — not for you to buy it for me. 
Get your own basket. Look, that is a beauty, 
with a good strong handle, for you to carry 
down to the beach.** 

“ How much is it ? ** 

Mrs. Curtis made a sign to her husband, who 
had the basket in his hand. 

“Just one shilling, sir; and this little basket 
is sixpence.’* 

“Oh, then my money is enough,** little Sir 
Theodore said joyfully. “Two threepenny bits 
make sixpence. Here is the money, Mrs. Curtis, 
and thank you.” 

“It’s I that am very thankful to you, sir. 
And pray, how is the old lady at the Hall ? ** 

“My grandmother is not very well, thank you ; 
she cannot go out, which is a pity, isn’t it?” 
And then, again raising his cap, and holding out 
his small hand to Mrs. Curtis, who took it in her 
large fat one as if it were something likely to 
break, little Sir Theodore Chamberlayne walked 
away carrying both his baskets with triumph. 


10 


MASTER MARTIN 


Mrs. Curtis followed him with admiring looks. 

‘‘What a little gentleman he is, to be sure, 
and such pretty ways with him ! It is a sad 
thing to think of him fatherless and motherless, 
and no one to play with, or nothing that a child 
should have.’* 

“You tell me, Sue,” Mr. Curtis ventured to 
say, “I cheapen the articles; but it’s you this 
time. That big basket was eighteenpence, and 
the little one, with the fancy edge, a shilling.” 

“And if they were, what is that to you, 
pray? Now we’ll move higher up the village; 
we’ve done the business here.” 

The old horse got a mysterious sound from Tim, 
shook his shabby mane, and slowly dragged the 
van along — baskets and brooms and all the 
chairs and tables creaking as they swung to and 
fro, while “ Bubbles,” within the van, sat immov- 
able, looking up at his magnificent globes, which, 
unlike the fairy globes blown by many a rosy 
mouth like his, did not vanish into nothingness, 
but remained suspended above his head, and 
were the constant admiration of Mrs. Curtis, 
who used to say they were as natural as if they 
were just blown from the pipe. 

Little Sir Theodore had a small altercation 
with his Nana at the place where four roads 


MASTER MARTIN 


II 


met. “ I wish to go round by the heatn, if you 
please, Nana?” 

“It will make us late, my dear, and her lady- 
ship will be angry with me.” 

“No; she will only be angry with we, Nana. 
Do, do come ; I want so very much to see that 
little old man again, and I should like to speak 
to him.” 

“ I don’t think your grandmamma would 
approve of your talking to the old man, my 
dear.” 

“Oh dear!” poor little Theodore sighed. 
“Grannie does not approve of nothing and no 
one. It is a great pity, Nana.” 


CHAPTEE II 

SUKPRISES 

Master Martin was well used to the gibes and 
jeers of some of the Knapton boys, but to-day 
he limped away more slowly than usual to his 
cottage on the heath. He had built this house 
himself some years before this time. 

It had originally been a hut, lived in by a 
shepherd, and then used for a shelter in bad 
weather, and where he kept a few hurdles and 
water-troughs for the sheep in the winter. 

But the roof had fallen in, and it was alto- 
gether in a most dilapidated condition when 
Master Martin, wandering over the moor from 
Gimingham, took refuge there in a heavy storm 
of rain, and, throwing down the bundle and old 
carpet-bag which contained all his worldly goods, 
took possession of it, and set to work to make it 
inhabitable. 

He was very much bent with rheumatism, and 
his legs were twisted, and his head was much too 

xa 


SURPRISES 


13 


large for his body. But his fingers were useful 
and skilful, and very soon he had covered in the 
roof of the hut with furze branches from the 
moor, laid in rows with turf between them, and 
patched up the walls with mortar made by him- 
self with mud, which was mixed with sand and 
chalk, and served to fill the spaces between 
the rough-hewn stones of which the hut was 
built. 

There was a great deal of ingenuity shown in 
making this poor place habitable, and it had stood 
the storms and heavy snow and rains of many 
winters — of more winters than had passed over 
the head of little Sir Theodore Chamberlayne, 
who had not yet reached his eighth birth- 
day. 

His was a lonely childhood, passed with his 
grandmother. Both his parents were dead, and 
he knew none of the delights of a house full of 
brothers and sisters. Of course this life made 
him what his grandmother’s housekeeper called 
him, “an old-fashioned little mortal.” 

But nurse would rejoin, “It’s a very good 
fashion, if it’s an old one ; for a better child than 
Sir Theodore never lived, bless him ! ’* 

“ He wants play-fellows, and to be stirred up a 
bit ; but it’s no use talking to you, Mrs. Longhurst. 


MASTER MARTIN 


14 

You don’t seem to mind having the child, and 
a little baronet, too, brought up unbefitting his 
station.” 

These conversations in his grandmother’s ser- 
vants’ hall were very frequent, and always ended 
in Mrs. Longhurst leaving it in wrathful indig- 
nation that any fault should be found with her 
darling. 

She very seldom crossed Sir Theodore’s will, 
though she made faint attempts to do so, as she 
did to-day when he wanted to go home by the 
longest way, that he might go past Master Martin’s 
cottage and speak to him. 

“ Didn’t that big boy, Nana, call Master Martin 
‘ Old Crooked Legs ? ’ He was very unkind, and 
I should so like to speak to him.” 

But when at last Sir Theodore had reached 
the cottage, his courage failed him, for Master 
Martin looked anything but agreeable as he 
squatted on the turf-bench he had made just 
outside his door. 

A small strip of garden — if garden it could be 
called — was in front of the cottage, surrounded 
with a paling of sticks set at irregular intervals. 
A gap was left in them, and a bit of rope did duty 
for a gate, hooked across from the point of one 
stick to another. It was hooked across now, and 



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“How lire yv)U to-day, Master Martin ?” — Patje 15 




SURPRISES 1 5 

Sir Theodore stood irresolute, but at last said, 
“ How are you to-day. Master Martin ? ** 

A grunt was the answer, and Nana said, “ Come 
away, my dear ! come away ! 

But Theodore was not discouraged. 

“You have got a nice little house. Master 
Martin ; I should so like to come in and see it.” 

Still no reply, but a grunt even more defiant 
than the first, as Master Martin picked up a 
coarse fisherman’s net and began to draw the big 
bone netting-needle through on a piece of flat 
wood which served for a mesh. 

“ I wish I could work like that ; and you make 
baskets too, don’t you ? I have just bought these 
two baskets from Mrs. Curtis. They are very 
nice baskets. Did you make them ? ” 

“No;” and then for the first time Master 
Martin looked straight at the little speaker. 

The sweet, innocent face, with its setting of 
golden curls, the wistfui glance of the deep blue 
eyes, the rosy lips, and cheeks like the delicate 
pink and white of the apple-blossoms in the 
orchards in May, seemed to arrest Master Martin’s 
attention. 

Something like a smile played over his rugged 
features, and he said — 

“ What makes you come peering and peeping 


i6 


MASTER MARTIN 


here, eh? To poke fun at my crooked legs, 
eh?” 

“ Oh no, no ! ” the child said. “ I wished to 
speak to you because I thought — I thought those 
boys were very, very rude to you, and I felt sorry, 
ril call again another day, if Nana will let me, 
and bring you a book I am very fond of, with a 
pretty picture in it. Good-bye, Master Martin.*’ 
“Good-day, young *un,” was the reply; and 
Nana took Sir Theodore’s hand, saying — 

“ It won’t do for you to talk to that surly old 
man ; he is enough to frighten any one. I shall 
not come round this way any more. He is a 
scarecrow. And the notion of his calling you 
‘ young ’un.’ The impudence of the man ! ” 

But Sir Theodore said — 

“ I am glad I told him I was sorry for him — 
very glad ; ” and then he ran on before Nana with 
his baskets, eager to show them to his particular 
friend in his grandmother’s household, Dolly, the 
under-housemaid, who waited on Mrs. Longhurst 
and cleaned the nurseries. 

The white gate of the hall stood wide open, and 
as Theodore ran up the drive he saw the marks 
of carriage-wheels, which were so unusual that 
he ran back to Nana, who said — 

“ There’s been a carriage. Dear heart ! I hope 


SURPRISES 17 

it isn’t the doctor; but he always goes to the 
back.” 

No, it was not the doctor ; for a carriage with 
post-horses was standing at the door, and the 
footman was talking to Dennis, the old butler, in 
a very earnest way. 

Nana was very curious, but she knew better 
than to pass in at the front door, especially 
when Dennis stood there. 

She always went in at the back-entrance with 
Sir Theodore, as the stair leading to their part 
of the house was reached from the passage by 
the housekeeper’s room. 

“Who is here, Mrs. Barker? There is a 
carriage with post-horses at the door.” 

“It’s a gentleman and a little boy — posted all 
the way from Norwich — so James says. They’ll 
stay to luncheon, I make no doubt, and there’s 
nothing but plain fare for them.” 

“A little boy!” Sir Theodore caught at the 
words. “I should like to see him, Nana. I 
wonder what he is like ? ” 

“Well, make haste upstairs, and let me get 
you ready, for the first gong has sounded, and 
if there is company in the dining-room, I must 
change your suit. 

“ I shall show him my baskets,” Sir Theodore 

B 


i8 


MASTER MARTIN 


said, “ and lend him mine if he wants to go down 
to the beach at Overstrand.” 

Full of curiosity, but with no awkward shy- 
ness, little Sir Theodore, in his velvet suit and 
deep lace collar, went into the dining-room at 
the sound of the second gong. 

No one was there, but after waiting two or 
three minutes at his place by the table, Theo- 
dore's grandmother came in, leaning on a gentle- 
man's arm, and followed by a boy in a rough 
grey suit, with a quantity of short curling brown 
hair and rosy cheeks. 

“This is Theodore, Mr. Harrison,” Lady Cham- 
berlayne said. “Come and speak to Mr. Har- 
rison, Theodore.” And Theodore advanced, and 
held his small hand stretched out by way of 
greeting as he said, just as he had said to Mrs. 
Curtis — 

“lam very well, thank you,” anticipating the 
question, which in this case was not asked. 

Theodore then went round the table to the boy. 

“How do you do? I am quite well, thank 
you.” 

The boy looked at little Theodore from head to 
foot. 

“Why, you look like a girl,” he said. “What 
a lark!” 


SURPRISES 


19 


Theodore was conscious that his greeting in 
either case had not been well received. But he 
turned quickly away and took his accustomed 
seat at the table, his cheeks a little flushed. He 
folded his small hands and said his grace just 
as if the strangers had not been present. 

A great change came now into little Sir 
Theodore’s life, just as unexpectedly as changes 
come into the lives of most people, boys and 
girls and grown-up people alike. 

Mr. Harrison was left by Theodore’s father his 
guardian, and he was also the guardian of the 
boy with the curly hair, who was also an orphan. 
Mr. Harrison thought, and perhaps justly, that 
Theodore wanted the companionship of a boy 
about his own age, and he had come to Knapton 
to make arrangements for Kobin Prescott to be 
his companion, and the two boys were to have 
a tutor and have their lessons together. 

This all happened as Mr. Harrison suggested, 
or rather settled, for he was a masterful person ; 
and Lady Chamberlayne having no one to con- 
sult, and being too indolent to exert herself in 
any way about her grandson, it was perhaps as 
well that Mr. Harrison should be able to settle 
matters for her, which she could not settle for 
herself. 


20 


MASTER MARTIN 


If the world had been searched, a greater 
contrast could not have been found than that 
which was to be seen between Robin Prescott 
and Theodore Chamberlayne. 

This did not concern Mr. Harrison, if he thought 
about it at all. He thought Theodore was a little 
milksop, and that it was time he should know 
what other boys were like, and have some one 
about him of a different sort to Mrs. Longhurst. 

There can be no doubt that the change was 
a necessary one, but it was brought about without 
much consideration for the feejings of the little 
delicate child, who, with a natural refinement 
and a sensitive nature, shrank from the rough- 
and-ready manners of his new companion. 

And the change at the Hall brought un- 
deniable changes in the cottage. It became 
known in the village that a boy was wanted to 
look after the new pony which had arrived for 
the young gentleman to ride. 

Mrs. Press was very anxious that her boy 
should succeed in getting the place ; so was Mrs. 
Cross. 

The two boys were about the same age and 
ready for work, as both had reached the age 
when they could leave school. 

Of the two, Mrs. Press’s son was the smaller 


SURPRISES 


21 


and more delicate-looking, while Ted Cross was 
big and strong, and had a pleasant way of speak- 
ing when he liked. But he was known to be the 
ringleader of mischief in the village, and again 
and again he had been nearly dismissed from the 
school for misconduct. 

Both mothers were set upon their boys getting 
the place at the Hall — to do sundry odd jobs in 
the stableyard for the coachman and groom, and 
to go out with the pony which had just been sent 
to Knapton, having been bought at the spring 
fair at Norwich, and chosen by Mr. Harrison 
for the use of his little ward, Sir Theodore 
Chamberlayne. 

Mrs. Cross was a big overbearing woman, while 
Mrs. Press was quiet and gentle. They had 
both been up to the Hall with their boys, whose 
faces had been scrubbed till they shone like rosy 
apples, and their hair brushed and discreetly 
damped to keep it smooth. 

Mrs. Cross was not at all well pleased to find 
Mrs. Press had been before her at the Hall. She 
had not received a definite answer, for the matter 
could not be decided till Mr. Harrison’s next 
visit. 

Mrs. Cross was loud in her praise of Ted while 
in the presence of the butler and housekeeper at 


22 


MASTER MARTIN 


the Hall, who gave her an interview in the house- 
keeper’s room. 

“ He was a good boy, and that strong, like his 
father before him, he could lift the pony if he 
tried; and he was one to work, and that clever 
with his books that learning was no trouble to 
him.” It was a little strange that, having given 
Ted such a glowing character, Mrs. Cross had 
rated him all the way home — told him he was 
the plague of her life, and gave him a box on the 
ear ; when he said — 

“ I thought I was the best boy who ever lived, 
mother. I heard you tell the lady so, and didn’t 
I laugh in my sleeve ! First time I ever heard 
you call me a good boy ! ” Then he began to 
whistle, and, tired of walking with his mother, 
leaped over a gate and began to give some sheep 
chase for the pleasure of seeing them frightened 
and run away with their lambs at their heels. 

Mrs. Press was far too modest to praise her 
Jack. He had his faults, she had said, like every 
one else, but she had never known him tell 
her a lie, and since she had been left a widow, 
he did all he could for her. She said she should 
be thankful if he got into good service, and he 
could turn his hand to anything. 

But, as the butler said, no decision could 


SUEPRISES 23 

be arrived at till Mr. Harrison’s next visit — her 
ladyship could not be troubled; and so both 
mothers were dismissed with nothing definitely 
settled, and with the vision of their boys in smart 
livery with gilt buttons, still but a castle in the 
air. 


CHAPTER III 

MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 

Little Sir Theodore was a thoughtful child, and 
after Mr. Harrison’s visit he sat perched up in 
the deep window-seat of his nursery, meditating 
on the change which was at hand. 

What was a tutor? Would he be nice and 
kind, and, in short, be like Nana, and take him 
to the village, and to the beach for periwinkles 
and seaweed ? 

Then there was the boy. He felt, though he 
could not have put it into words, that Robin 
Prescott rather looked down on him. 

‘‘Am I like a girl? ” he questioned Nurse. 

“You are prettier than many a girl, if that is 
what you mean, my dear.” 

“Do you think the boy who came with the 
man from Norwich pretty, Nana ? ” 

“Well, I scarcely saw him. Mr. Dennis said 
he was like a rough sort of ploughboy. I am 
sure I hope he won’t trample on you, nor the 

*4 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 2$ 

tutor neither ; ” and Nurse gave a prolonged sigh 
and said, “ No changes were better than changes 
for the worse.’* 

All this was very injudicious, to say the least of 
it, and did not tend to console little Sir Theodore. 

He next tried his grandmother when he went 
down for the hour before her dinner, which he 
generally spent lying flat on the hearthrug, with 
his chin resting on his elbows and a book open 
before him. 

‘■•Grannie,” he said, “when is the boy coming, 
and what is the tutor like ? ” 

“ Mr. Mackenzie and your little companion are 
to be here on Monday. I hope you will attend to 
all Mr. Mackenzie says, and be a good, obedient 
boy. It is quite time that you should have a 
companion, and some one to teach you. Long- 
hurst has done her best, but you are too old 
now to be left to a nurse. My very indifferent 
health has prevented me from making the change 
sooner.” 

“ I hope Mr. Mackenzie will go and see Master 
Martin.” 

“ Master Martin ! Who is that ? ” 

“A poor, little old man, with crooked legs, 
who lives in a dear funny little house, just on 
the edge of the moor. I do so want to go into 


26 


MASTER MARTIN 


the house and talk to him, but I have only got 
to the rope.” 

“ The rope ! What do you mean ? ** 

“ Why, you see, Grannie, there isn’t exactly a 
gate, but two posts, with a rope tied across ; and 
I just stood there and talked to him — to Master 
Martin, I mean.” 

“Oh, it is quite time you had some one to 
prevent you from gossiping with poor people.” 

“ Why is it quite time ? ” 

“Don’t ask any more questions, Theodore; it 
tires me. Go on with your book.” 

This was always the end of Theodore’s conver- 
sations with his grandmother, and he resigned 
himself to the inevitable. 

But amongst many thoughts which were pass- 
ing through his mind, two were prominent. The 
little old man in his hut, who was so lonely, and 
to whom the boys were so unkind ; and the pos- 
sibility of paying him a real visit without Nurse, 
and before Mr. Mackenzie and the new boy came. 

“ It is not very far,” he thought. “ I could soon 
get there, and no one need know. Would it be 
wrong, I wonder ? I could run all the way, and 
take him one of these nice cakes Mrs. Barker 
sent up for my tea. Yes, I really will go to- 
morrow, for I do so want to see him again — he 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 2/ 

looks SO sad ; and perhaps when the tutor comes 
he won’t let me go.” 

After reading his Bible to Nurse, repeating 
his hymn, which he learned with wonderful ease, 
and writing in a copybook after the fashion of 
Mrs. Lon ghurst’s youth. Sir Theodore was allowed, 
if it was fine, to go into the grounds round the 
Manor by himself with his hoop. So the next 
day, full of his scheme, he succeeded in getting 
two cakes from the nursery cupboard, and ran 
off in high spirits, his golden hair, which had 
perhaps suggested his likeness to a girl, flapping 
over the wide white collar of his blue serge sailor 
suit. 

There was a spirit of enterprise in him this 
morning, but when the gate of the drive swung 
behind him, he felt a little overwhelmed with the 
gravity of the situation. 

Many boys of his age are quite accustomed to 
run off to school alone, and probably would not 
understand the hesitation which made Theodore 
stand irresolute before he took the path across 
the moor which turned off from the road from 
Knapton. But the bright sunshine, the general 
joyfulness of the spring morning, which the larks 
were telling him over his head, the pair of white 
butterflies which danced before him, all seemed 


28 


MASTER MARTIN 


to inspire him with courage, and away he ran, 
never looking back once, but holding the cakes 
carefully in the loose full blouse of his suit. 

Presently the hut came in sight, and Theodore’s 
heart beat fast. He slackened his pace as he got 
nearer to the palings with their pointed tops, 
and the two higher than the rest across which 
the rope was slung. 

Nothing was to be seen of Master Martin at 
first, but Theodore loosened the rope and walked 
slowly up to the turf seat where he had seen 
Master Martin making the brown net. He stood 
at the open door with the light on his golden 
hair, the very picture of childish innocence, his 
large blue eyes wide open as they tried to pierce 
the gloom of the little hut. 

Presently Master Martin, who was bending 
over a peat fire which sent out suffocating curls 
of thin smoke, turned and saw what seemed to 
him a vision at his door. He saw the golden hair, 
but the sweet child face was but dimly discerned. 
He stood with a stick in his hand, with which he 
had been stirring the sluggish embers of the fire. 

“ Master Martin,” said a clear sweet voice, “ I 
thought I should like to come and see you. May 
I come in ? ” 

The muttered negative died on Master Martin’s 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 29 

lips as his visitor advanced timidly with the cakes 
in his hand. 

“These are very nice cakes; will you please 
take them ? ” 

Seeing Master Martin did not stretch out his 
hand to receive them, Theodore put them down 
on a rough apology for a table which stood 
against the wall. 

“ What made you come here, eh ? ” 

“Well, I thought you were lonely, and — I was 
sorry.” 

Master Martin's large prominent eyes wore an 
expression which they had not worn for many 
a day. A softened wistful gaze was fastened 
on the child who made him these overtures of 
friendship. 

“Lor,” he said at last, “you’d better have 
stayed away ; this ain’t a place for you.” 

“ Oh, but I think it is, and I will come again, 
if you will let me. I must not stay now, because 
Nurse does not know I have come. But I did 
so want to say that I hated to hear those boys 
calling after you — it was so rude, you know, and 
so unkind.” 

Master Martin was speechless. He only nodded 
his big head by way of assent, and Theodore went 

on — 


30 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ I am going to have a tutor now, and I shall 
tell him and the boy who is coming about you, 
and perhaps ” 

“ Don’t tell ’em. I don’t want ’em.” 

“ Oh, very well. But may I come again ? ” 

" You’ll not come no more.” 

“Why not?” 

“They won’t let you. But” — Master Martin 
stopped — “ but I am glad you did come this once 
— this OTice.” 

These few words made Theodore quite happy. 

“I’ve made him glad,” he said over and over 
to himself as he ran back over the moor. “ I’ve 
made him glad — quite glad, poor old man. I know 
if I were he — if I were Master Martin — I should be 
glad to see any one who was kind, who meant to 
be kind to me. But oh ! I am glad I am Theo- 
dore and not poor old Master Martin.” 

There was no guile in Theodore’s nature, and 
when he got back, breathless and excited, to the 
nursery, he said — 

“Oh, Nurse, I’ve been to see the little old 
man, and he was so pleased. I took him two 
cakes, and ” 

“My dear, my dear! you would get me into 
a fine scrape if this was found out. You must 
never run off again — never.” 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 3 1 

“Never?” Theodore replied. “You won’t 
mind if the tutor takes me or lets me go to 
see Master Martin?” 

“No; it won’t be my concern then,” Nurse 
said sadly. “ But we won’t say any more about 
it now.” 

“I can’t scold him, I can’t,” poor Nurse said. 
“ Ho is the picture of his dear mamma, who was 
always thinking of the poor and the afflicted. 
No, I can’t scold him, as I ought,” she reflected 
when she left Theodore at the dining-room door, 
to take his dinner with his grandmother, and 
went herself to her own dinner in the servants’ 
hall. 

The question as to which boy would be chosen 
for the coveted place in the Manor was much 
discussed in the village of Knapton. The popular 
feeling was all in favour of Jack Press ; and the 
schoolmaster, Mr. Bevan, and the old clergy- 
man — who, truth compels me to say, did not know 
much about either of the boys — were entirely on 
his side. 

“ If only he is big enough and strong enough,” 
was the only reservation which Mr. Bevan made. 

“ He is stronger than he looks, sir,” Mrs. Press 
said ; “ but I wish the gentleman would make up 
his mind soon, for it’s very unsettling; and there’s 


32 


MASTER MARTIN 


Farmer Hicks quite ready to take Johnnie on if 
so be he does not get the other place. It’s very 
unkind of Mrs. Cross to go about taunting me 
with my boy’s being small, and no more fit to 
groom a pony than he is to fly over the moon. 
If ever the old saying, ‘ Little and good,’ was true, 
it’s true of my Jack; and no one knows what 
a chap Ted Cross is, leastways the great folks at 
the Manor don’t know. Mischievous is no word 
for him.” 

“Well, well! let us hope all will turn out for 
the best. You know I have said all I can in 
your boy’s favour.” 

“ I thank you, sir, I am sure,” was Mrs. Press’s 
reply, as she turned into her house. 

Mrs. Cross was also lying in wait for Mr. 
Bevan. 

“Good-morning, sir. There ain’t any news 
from the great house, is there ? ” 

“ No ; but I hear Mr. Harrison, Sir Theodore’s 
guardian, is expected on Monday, and then we 
shall hear the decision.” 

Mr. Bevan was a little tired of these questions 
about the boys, and he added sharply — 

“I only hope, if Ted is chosen, you will bid 
him do his best to give satisfaction. He will 
have to give up his monkey tricks if he wishes 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 33 

to be a good servant. Good-morning,” and before 
Mrs. Cross could rejoin, Mr. Bevan bad gone into 
his own house and shut the door. 

Both Johnnie Press and Ted Cross were the 
children of widows. Their fathers had been 
fishermen, and had been lost in one of the great 
storms which rage on the Norfolk coast in the 
spring and autumn. 

Then the great German Ocean lifts up its voice, 
and huge, mountainous waves break with a crash 
like the roar of cannon on the ridge of pebbles 
which lie above the level sand, where happy 
children build their houses and dig their deep 
pools on summer days. 

On this particular spring afternoon the sea was 
calm, flecked only by little crests of foam as it 
came to fill the pools on the low ledges of rock 
where the periwinkles lived, and the seaweed 
and sea-anemones spread out their fronds in the 
little clear pools of water between the rough bits 
of rock. 

It was one of Sir Theodore’s great delights to 
go to the beach with his nurse at low tide and 
gather periwinkles to take home for his tea in 
the nursery, to which his favourite Dolly was 
often invited. 

If the boys and girls who read this story are 

c 


34 


MASTER MARTIN 


not Norfolk-born, they may never have enjoyed 
this quest for the little shellfish, which are called 
by the natives “ pin-patches ; ” this name signi- 
fying that when they are cooked they can be got 
out of their shells by the aid of a stout pin. 

A very homely feast these little periwinkles 
provided for Sir Theodore, but, as they were certi- 
fied as perfectly wholesome by the old Doctor, 
who paid frequent visits to Lady Chamberlayne, 
Nurse was always ready to gratify Theodore, and 
a journey to the beach, on calm days, at low tide, 
was one of the great pleasures of Theodore’s 
childhood. 

“We shan’t have many more winkle-hunts,” 
Nurse said sadly. 

“ Why not ? ” the boy asked. 

“It is not likely the tutor will care for pin- 
patches, my dear. He will be too grand for that.” 

Theodore would not spoil the present by melan- 
choly anticipations. He ran gaily down over the 
smooth sand to the low-lying ridge of black rocks 
which the tide had left uncovered. He was sure 
of foot, and jumped lightly from one little crag 
to another, calling out to Nurse, “ I’ve found lots 
— such big ones. I shall fill the basket.” 

“Take care you don’t slip,” Nurse said, who 
was cautiously approaching ; “ there’s a lot of sea- 


MASTER MARTIN HAS A VISITOR 35 

weed to-day ; ” and Theodore laughed merrily and 
skipped along till he came to a pool rather deeper 
than the rest— a crystal pool with a perfect 
garden of crimson seaweed waving in its clear 
depths, and a goodly number of periwinkles cling- 
ing to the side. Theodore stooped to gather them, 
and overbalancing himself, he fell into the water 
with a gi’eat splash, Nurse uttering a terrified cry 
as he disappeared. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 

In less time than it takes me to write it, a boy 
had scampered over the rocks and pulled Sir 
Theodore out of the pool. He was, of course^ 
drenched to the skin, and his fair hair was lying 
in wet masses all over his face and neck. He 
had lost his breath with the sudden splash in the 
pool head foremost, and although scarcely more 
than five feet in depth, it was deep enough to 
drown little Theodore if he had not been helped 
out. 

He tried to say, “ I — I am not hurt, Nurse ; 
don’t be so frightened. It is only ” — ^then pathe- 
tically — “ I wish I could see,” for the wealth of 
golden hair in wet dripping masses bewildered 
him, and the salt water made his eyes smart. 

“ I must get you home as fast as I can,” poor 
Nurse said, “ but you’ll catch your death of cold,” 
she added, wringing the water out of Theodore’s 
hair, and trying to raise him in her arms. 

36 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 37 

“If you please, ma’am,” Theodore’s deliverer 
said, who was following Nurse and her burden 
to the sand, “ I’ll carry the little gentleman. 
That’s my mother’s cottage by the boat-house. 
She will dry the little master’s clothes if you 
like.” 

“Well,” Nurse said, as she tottered under 
Theodore’s weight, “ it won’t be a bad plan, for 
I’ve got such a palpitation in my heart. I never 
was so frightened in my life.” 

Then, quite overcome. Nurse burst into tears 
and resigned Theodore into Johnnie Press’s arms, 
who made for his mother’s cottage with quick, 
sure strides. 

Theodore had regained his voice now, and said, 
“ I don’t think I thanked you for pulling me out, 
did I?” 

“ That’s all right, sir ; there’s nothing to thank 
for. I am glad you are all right.” 

Mrs. Press was busy ironing in the back- 
kitchen when Johnnie’s call brought her to see 
what was the matter. 

“ Dear heart ! ” she exclaimed, “ what has hap- 
pened ? You look as if you were drownded. 
Why, it’s little Sir Theodore!” 

“I am not drownded, thank you,” Theodore 
said, out of politeness imitating Mrs. Press. “ I 


MASTER MARTIN 


38 

am rather wet, but I am not frightened now. 
You see, I fell head first into the water ; that’s 
how it was. I can’t help my teeth chattering, 
and my hand shakes ; but this is a very nice 
fire ” 

“ Get his wet things off him,” Mrs. Press said 
to Nurse, "and don’t give in. You should 
never give in, but bear up. That’s what I’ve 
done since I was left a widow. I’ve said to 
myself, ‘ I must bear up.’ ” 

This practical way of looking at what had 
happened seemed to give Mrs. Longhurst spirit. 
She dried her tears, and proceeded to undress 
Theodore and spread his clothes to dry before 
the peat fire, which, by the help of a few bits 
of drift-wood picked up on the beach, began to 
kindle into a blaze. 

A blanket was brought from a bed upstairs, 
and Theodore was wrapped in it and put upon 
an old oak settle close to the hearth. 

“ I’ll make him a cup of hot tea,” Mrs. Press 
said. “ Bless him ! what a pretty boy he is ! ” 

“ If you please, Mrs. Press,” Theodore said, “ I 
would rather not be called pretty. Girls are pretty, 
and I am a boy, and boys are not pretty.” 

“What a clever little gentleman you are!” 
Mrs. Press said. 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 


39 

Her hopes were rising that, after these atten- 
tions to Sir Theodore, her Johnnie would be safe 
to get the coveted place at the great house. 

But before the tea came Theodore’s eyes had 
closed, and what with the shock of the sudden 
plunge into the water and the heat of the fire, 
he was too drowsy to keep awake, and slept 
peacefully in the corner of the settle, his hair 
twisted up into a knot by Nana, and his head 
resting on a cushion covered with a faded grey 
cretonne, which had been taken from a wooden 
arm-chair, where Nurse was now sitting turn- 
ing the little shirt and sailor suit and knicker- 
bockers before the fire. 

There had been no witnesses of the accident, 
and it was not till Mrs. Cross came to the door 
to borrow a few bits of peat from Mrs. Press 
that the fact of Sir Theodore Chamberlayne being 
in Mrs. Press’s cottage was known. 

“ Whatever’s up now ? ” she said, pushing her 
head in at the door, where Johnnie was standing 
on guard. “ Who have you got there ? ” 

“ That’s no odds to you, Mrs. Cross. Shut the 
door, Johnnie.” 

“Well, that’s manners, I must say;” and then 
Mrs. Cross left the door, but, standing on a 
hamper outside, peered in at the window. 


40 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ Well, I never ! if there isn’t the little baronet 
and that crabbed Mrs. Longhurst. Lor! the 
child is asleep and looks like death. How proud 
Mrs. Press will be. I expect that rascal Johnnie 
has pushed him into the water on purpose, and 
now will be acting as if he had saved him, just to 
get the place at the Hall. I see through it, I 
do ; there’s all the clothes drying, and Mrs. Press 
jabbering away and telling Mrs. Longhurst what 
a good boy hers is.” 

Having finished her inspection, which had not 
been noticed by those in the cottage, Mrs. Cross 
departed to spread the news amongst the gossips 
of the village, that little Sir Theodore was lying 
like death in Mrs. Press’s cottage, and that 
Johnnie had shut the door in her face, and 
looked ashamed of himself — as well he might; 
for he had pushed Sir Theodore into the water 
off the rocks. She had seen Johnnie skulking 
about when she went up to the “Jolly Hunts- 
man ” for a pint of beer, and it was not the first 
time she had seen Mrs. Press’s boy trying to 
bring himself into notice with the little baronet. 
She knew what he was after, and his mother too, 
but she would see to it that they didn’t get 
what they wanted. 

This false report, like other false reports, did 


THE STOEY CIRCULATES 


41 


not lose in the telling of it, but soon magnified 
into a story, which went to show that Johnnie 
Press had pushed Sir Theodore into the sea under 
pretence of helping him to gather pin-patches, 
and it was pretty plain now that he would never 
get the place at the Hall, let his mother try ever 
so much. 

It is extraordinary what delight people often 
show in listening to baseless rumours till they 
persuade themselves that they are true statements 
of fact. Before half-an-hour was over there 
was quite a little crowd of inquirers before Mrs. 
Press’s cottage. The repeated taps at the door 
were answered by Johnnie, who always said that 
“Little Sir Theodore was all right, and was 
not a bit hurt;” but heads were shaken, and 
there were whispers and murmurs that it was 
all very fine, but time would prove. 

Mrs. Cross, delighted with the success of her 
story, stood a little aloof, looking out for some 
one else whom she could move to wonder and 
pity for the “ poor dear little gentleman, who was 
that delicate no one thought he could live to be 
a man.” 

She was soon gratified by the appearance of 
the doctor. She ran excitedly to stop his high 
gig, and said — 


42 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ Stop, sir ; pray, sir, stop.” 

The doctor pulled up, and asked in a rough voice, 
“What’s the matter ? I am in a hurry.” 

^‘Oh, sir, it’s the little baronet, who has been 
nearly drownded. He is in Press’s cottage, and 
looks like death.” 

This was quite enough. The good doctor was 
out of his gig in a twinkling, and calling Ted 
Cross, who was hanging about eagerly drinking 
in the story his mother was telling about Johnnie 
Press, said — 

“Here, boy, make yourself useful, and hold 
the horse’s head while I go and find out what 
is amiss.” 

It was an immense relief to poor Mrs. Long- 
hurst to see the doctor walk into the cottage. 
Theodore was still asleep, and his cheeks were 
flushed, and he murmured something about the 
pretty seaweed and the periwinkles. 

“ How did it happen ? ” the doctor asked. 

“ He fell into a pool on the rocks, sir, 
stooping over it to get periwinkles. He isn’t 
hurt.” 

“ No, that may be ; but he is a delicate child, 
and the shock is bad for him.” 

The doctor’s voice roused Theodore. He sat 
up and said — 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 


43 


“We had better go home now, Nana, hadn’t 
we ; it must be tea-time. Where are my things ? 
Please dress me.” 

“ Yes, my precious,” Nurse said, “ but we must 
wait till the things are dry.” 

“ No, no,” the doctor exclaimed ; “ bundle him 
up, Nurse, in the blanket, and I have a rug in 
the gig, and we’ll get him home in a trice. The 
sooner the better. He must be put to bed and 
have a nice hot draught, and he will be as well as 
ever in the morning.” 

“I am quite well,” Theodore said; “only my 
head feels rather funny. I think — I think ” 

“ Don’t think about anything, my boy. Ah ! I 
see there is a little bruise on his forehead.” 

“ He must have knocked it against the rocks as 
he fell,” Nana said. “Oh dear! to think after 
all these years this should happen when nothing 
has ever happened before since his dear mamma 
said to me, ‘Take care of him, Longhurst; 
never leave him.’ And now, just as the tutor 
is coming, and ** 

“Come, come, that will do,” the doctor said; 
“let us be off. That is right ; wrap him up in 
the blanket; and you, boy, get my rug. Now 
we shall do all right.” And raising Theodore 
in his arms, the doctor bid Mrs. Longhurst get 


44 


MASTER MARTIN 


into the gig and then he would lift him up 
to her. 

“Wait, please,” Theodore’s little voice was 
heard from under the blanket. “I want to 
thank Mrs. Press for being so kind, and the 
boy for pulling me out, and 

“You are kindly welcome, sir, I am sure,” 
Mrs. Press said. “ We are only thankful, Johnnie 
and I, to have been useful.” 

“Good-bye, good-bye,” Theodore called in a 
muffled voice, as, snugly wrapt up in Nurse’s arms, 
he was borne away at a rapid pace in the doctor’s 

gig- 

When they were fairly off the spectators dre'w 
nearer. 

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” 
Mrs. Cross said. “You’ll get a pretty little 
bit of money for this, and a new blanket into 
the bargain. It’s a pity Ted didn’t happen 
to be on the rocks, but that’s like my 
luck. How did you come to push him in, 
Johnnie ? ” 

“How dare you say I pushed the little gent 
in ? I got him out easy enough ; it was not a 
deep pool.” 

A disagreeable laugh was Mrs. Cross’s answer 
as she turned away, her attention being diverted 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 


45 


for the moment by the sight of Master Martin 
trudging along with a brown fishing-net he was 
bringing to one of the fishermen’s cottages farther 
along the beach. 

“ Well, Old Crooked Legs,” Ted began. 

“ Stop that,” Johnnie said, ‘‘ stop that. Here, 
Master Martin, let me carry that net along for 
you.” 

Master Martin sank down on the fragments of 
a stone wall which had been raised to break the 
force of the waves when in a great storm they 
came rolling over the belt of shingle in front of 
the cottages with tremendous force. 

An angry light came into his eyes as Ted 
Cross whistled to one of his companions and 
said — 

“ Here’s Old Crooked Legs, and what a lark ! 
Jack is acting the good boy, and is going to 
carry his net to Bob’s cottage for him. So kind 
of him, ain’t it ? ” 

The mocking laugh which accompanied the 
words was hard to bear. Johnnie doubled his 
fist and said — 

“ Shut up, or I’ll ” 

“ Come on, then, come on.” 

“ No, Johnnie, no,” his mother said. “ Remem- 
ber what father used to say about fighting. It 


MASTER MARTIN 


46 

was sometliing about ruling the spirit being a 
greater thing than taking a city.” 

Johnnie hesitated for a moment, then snatching 
up the net, he ran off with it. 

Master Martin shook his head when Mrs. Press 
wanted him to take a seat in her cottage till 
Johnnie came back, but beckoning her, said — 

“ Will you tell me, ma’am, if the little gentle- 
man is hurted? I heard the folks talking as I 
came along, and that the doctor was taking of 
him home with a broken head.” 

It was so very unusual for Master Martin to 
enter into conversation with any one, that Mrs. 
Press was quite surprised when he repeated, “ Do 
’ee tell me, ma’am.” 

Then Mrs. Press related the story as we know 
it, and Master Martin nodded his head and rocked 
his body to and fro, murmuring to himself. 

“He’s a little angel, that’s what he is,” Mrs. 
Press said, “ and I am glad enough to have had 
the chance of serving him. I only wish my Johnnie 
might get the place at the Hall, but I am afraid 
he won’t have the good fortune to get it. There’s 
them who will try to prevent it. I know that 
very well.” 

Master Martin’s words were few, but when 
Johnnie came back with the information that 


THE STORY CIRCULATES 


47 


Bob Smith was out, but he had left the net with 
Mrs. Smith, who said she would pay for it next 
time — 

“Always next time — always next time,” the 
poor little man said as he drew himself together 
and prepared to trudge back the way he came. 
“You are sure his head ain’t broke ? ” were his 
parting words. 

“ Qaite sure ; it was only the shock of the fall,” 
Mrs. Press answered him. 


CHAPTEE V 


THE TUTOR 

Little Sir Theodore did not seem any the worse 
for his sea-bath the next day. 

Salt water rarely if ever gives cold. Nurse 
said that the pretty sailor’s suit was so stiffened, 
that it could only be given to a poor child in 
the village, or if Sir Theodore was allowed to 
bathe, it would make a nice bathing-dress. 

As it was one of his grandmother’s fixed ideas 
that her little grandson was too delicate to bathe, 
and she had refused to allow it, she was naturally 
much surprised the next morning, when Theodore 
went to pay her his daily short visit after his 
nursery-breakfast, Theodore said — 

‘‘I fell into the sea, yesterday, Grannie. Nurse 
would not tell you last evening, because you had 
a bad ache in your side.” 

Old Lady Chamberlayne put her hand to her 
heart. 

“ King for Longhurst ! fell into the sea, and I 

48 


THE TUTOR 


49 


was never told ; it is excessively wrong of Long- 
hurst. She has proved herself very unfit for her 
charge, and it is a comfort to me to think the 
tutor is coming to-day. Eing the bell, child, and 
let us have no more concealments.” 

Longhurst had been expecting the summons, and 
had stood in the corridor trembling as she waited 
for it. She appeared now, and gave a hurried 
and frightened account of what had happened. 

Lady Chamberlayne was somewhat pitiless ; 
she asked that the doctor should be immediately 
sent for, and informed poor Longhurst that, 
from that day she would have nothing more to 
do with Theodore but take care of his clothes, 
and attend to his dressing and undressing. 

Theodore stood by his dear Nurse, holding her 
hand as a token of sympathy, and looking up 
into her troubled face with a world of love and 
tenderness in his eyes. 

“Grannie,” he began, “it was nobody’s fault 
but mine. I have gathered pin-patches often.” 

“ Pin-patches!” Lady Chamberlayne exclaimed. 
“That is a vulgar word, only used by common 
people. You mean periwinkles, I suppose. Well, 
you will gather no more. Now that will do. I 
am very much upset. I hope, Theodore, you 
will be obedient to Mr. Mackenzie.” 

D 


50 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ Mr. who, Grannie ? ” 

“Mr. Mackenzie, your tutor, — and be obliging 
and kind to little Master Prescott. They will 
be here to luncheon, and you must show your 
little friend the schoolroom.” 

“/s he my little friend?” Theodore asked 
rather doubtfully, recalling the first interview 
with some misgiving. 

“ Of course he is your’ friend — what a strange 
child you are! — and I expect you to make the 
little boy welcome. Now that will do.” 

“ I am sure, my lady, I am dreadful sorry for 
what has happened,” poor Longhurst said, shak- 
ing with sobs, “ and if it wasn’t for the promise I 
made my dear lady, never to leave Sir Theodore 
till ” 

“That will do, Longhurst. I really can bear 
no more.” 

Theodore and his faithful friend had left the 
room, and no sooner were they in the corridor, 
than the child threw his arms round Nurse’s 
neck. 

“ Oh, don’t cry. I love you, Nana, and I wish 
no tutor was coming with that boy.” 

“So do I, my darling — so do I ; but we must 
not say so, and don’t vex your little heart about 
me. You can come and tell me every little 


THE TUTOR 5 I 

trouble, you know, and I’ll see you are not put 
upon by tutors and boys.” 

Nurse spoke in the plural number; it was a 
habit of hers when she wished to be emphatic. 

“ Are we to do our lessons in the nursery ? I 
wonder how the boy will like that, Nana ? ” 

“ Nursery ! Lor, my dear, you must come and 
see the schoolroom ; it is all done up. Here’s Jane 
the housemaid. She’ll tell you if the rooms in 
the south wing are ready, and show ’em to you. I 
haven’t the heart.” 

All these lamentations were very bad for little 
Theodore, and it was excessively unwise of Nurse 
to indulge in them. But, with the thought of 
seeing something new, Theodore skipped off 
gaily with Jane to see the rooms where the new 
boy and the tutor were to take up their 
abode. 

The schoolroom had not been used for a long 
time, but it had been newly papered and painted, 
and the book-shelves were all varnished, and had 
new leather edges, fastened with bright brass 
nails, to keep the dust from any books that 
might be put there. They were for the most 
part empty, except one or two, where old books 
belonging to Theodore’s father’s and an aunt’s 
school-days were ranged in rows, the backs in 


MASTER MARTIN 


52 

several cases broken, and ragged leaves peeping 
out from top and bottom. 

Tbe Bcboolroom had a large bow-window — an 
old-fashioned bow, with many small panes of 
glass — and it looked out on the leaden roof 
of another bow on the floor below, which did not 
add to the cheerful aspect of the room. 

“ Two big balls ! What are they for ? ” Theo- 
dore cried. “ They can’t be to play with. And 
there are maps on one ; and I don’t know what 
the other is. Do you know, Jane ? ” 

“ They are globes. Sir Theodore. You’ll learn 
all about them from your tutor.” 

“ I shall like that,” Theodore said, touching the 
globes in turn with his fingers and making them 
revolve. “ Oh, I shall like to learn all about the big 
balls — globes, I mean. What a large table, and a 
lot of drawers ! I suppose the tutor will sit in that 
big chair, and the boy and me on these high stools.” 

“Well, come along. Sir Theodore; you’ll have 
enough of this room before long, and wish your- 
self out of it.” 

The tutor’s bedroom opened from the school- 
room, and was visited next; then across the 
passage were two small rooms. 

“ One for you, sir, and one for the young gent 
who is coming.” 


THE TUTOR 


53 


Theodore looked doubtful now. 

“ I shall go on sleeping in the night-nursery,” 
he said. “I shan’t leave Nana; she’d be so 
lonely, you know.” 

“I expect you’ll have to do as you are bid,” 
Jane said; “but I have no more time to stand 
gossiping, so you had better run back to the 
nursery.” 

Sir Theodore went rather slowly down the 
long passage to the short flight of steps which 
led to the floor on which the inhabited rooms of 
the large, rambling old house were situated. 

Something told him that a new life was be- 
ginning, and that everything would change. 
Would it be nicer and happier, or would it be 
quite the reverse ? 

For a few minutes he was grave as he walked 
soberly along, and when he came to the stairs, 
he put one foot down on each step and drew 
the other after it, instead of taking the whole 
short flight with a flying leap, with the help of 
his hands on the banisters, as was his custom. 

Suddenly a thought struck him ; there were to 
be no lessons with Longhurst to-day. Of course, 
the verse of the Bible and hymn out of his little 
text-book, which Nurse never allowed him to 
miss learning and repeating to her while he was 


54 


MASTER MARTIN 


waiting for his breakfast, had not been for- 
gotten ; but Nurse had put away the slate and 
the copy-book, and the Easy Keading-Book and 
Little Arthur s History, in the cupboard, saying 
with a sigh — 

“You’ll have a lot of new-fangled books, I 
dare say, now. I only hope they won’t work 
your poor brain too hard. If they do, they’ll 
repent it.” 

Theodore’s sudden thought when he roused 
himself from his meditations on the coming tutor 
was that he would go and have a talk with 
Master Martin. So he snatched his cap from 
the stand in the hall, and dashed out across 
the lawn and through the field-path to Master 
Martin’s cottage. 

His heart beat fast as he ran, not feeling quite 
sure whether he was doing right, and yet full of 
the pleasure he thought it might give Master 
Martin. 

But poor little Theodore was to be disappointed 
this time. There was no Master Martin to be 
seen. The door of the hut was shut, and the 
rope pulled tightly across the two pointed palings. 

Theodore crept under the rope and went up 
to the hut, steadying himself on a flower -pot 
turned upside down to look in at the window. 


THE TUTOR 


55 

All was quiet and nothing was stirring. Some- 
thing like awe came over Sir Theodore — he was 
BO lonely, and a little afraid he had done wrong 
to come again. “ But the tutor will never, never 
let me come to see poor Master Martin, and it 
was for the last time,” he said. 

Theodore set off, his golden hair flying in the 
wind as he ran full speed to the gate of the Hall. 

A carriage was just driving in, and a boy’s voice 
was heard, “ Look, sir, that’s the little chap.” 

Theodore, burrowing amongst the laurels which 
skirted the drive, knew it was Robin Prescott’s 
voice, and the tutor was in the carriage with him. 

“ No; it must be a mistake,” he thought, as he 
got within sight of the Hall-door and saw a young 
man spring out of the carriage. 

“ He can’t be the tutor,” Theodore said ; “ he is 
like a boy ; he isn’t old enough.” 

Poor little boy ! he stood in his hiding-place be- 
hind a thick bush of laurustinus till the luggage 
had all been taken off the carriage, and the tutor 
and Robin Prescott followed the footman into the 
hall. Then he ran round to the back entrance 
and up the familiar stairs to his old quarters, and 
told Nurse, breathless and excited, that he had 
seen the tutor, and he was not one bit what he 
expected — only perhaps it was not he, after all. 


MASTER MARTIN 


56 

“ I dare say it is, and we must make the best 
of him, my dear,” Nurse said in a melancholy 
voice. “ Where have you been galloping off to ? 
Your face is as red as a peony, and you are quite 
out of breath.” 

‘‘I went to see Master Martin just for once 
more,” Theodore said apologetically ; “ but he 
was not at home.” 

“ Well, it was very naughty of you ; but then 
it’s your last bit of liberty ; you’ll not go and see 
the old man again in a hurry.” 

Mr. Mackenzie lost no time in making friends 
with his small pupil. He seemed perfectly at 
ease with Lady Chamberlayne at luncheon, and 
surprised Theodore afterwards by putting his 
hand on his shoulder and saying, “ Will you 
show us about the place, my boy ? Everything is 
new to us.” 

‘‘ Not to me,” Kobin said, “ not to me, sir. I 
have been here before.” 

“Well, there is plenty that will bear seeing 
twice, I should think.” 

He still kept his hand on Theodore’s shoulder — 
such a kind firm hand it was, and Theodore, look- 
ing up into the tutor’s face, saw a pair of smiling 
blue eyes looking down on him as he said, ‘‘ Run 
and get your hat, my boy, and Robin and I will 


THE TUTOR 


57 

get ours, and meet you here in five minutes. I 
hope we shall find our way to our own quarters ; 
but it will take time to learn the geography of 
the Hall.” 

“I will show you, sir,” the footman now inter- 
posed ; “ it is a rambling old house this, and full 
of turns and twists.” 

James had, like all the rest of the household, 
set himself against the coming change, and had 
declared his intention of treating the tutor just 
as was convenient ; but the sunny face and merry 
laugh, with the pleasant courteous manner which 
acknowledged any little service, won James’s 
heart. 

“ He comes of real gentry, depend on it,” he 
said in the servants’ hall that evening. “ I can 
tell that with half an eye. I know a gentleman 
when I see him, I hope ; and I shouldn’t wonder 
if it’s the best thing in the world for Sir Theodore 
to have a tutor, after all.” 


CHAPTER yi 

THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 

The question as to which boy was to attend to 
the pony and be useful to the two young gentle- 
men was still unsettled. 

At first it was thought that it could not be 
decided till Mr. Harrison’s next visit, and he 
was not able to come to Knapton, owing to urgent 
business, for another week. 

Mr. Mackenzie had what is called “ a gift ” in 
the management of boys, and he saw before 
many days were over that little Theodore had 
a great deal to learn and to bear from his com- 
panion Robin Prescott. 

He did not interfere unless it was absolutely 
necessary, but he kept a watchful eye on the two 
boys, that a little good-humoured teazing from 
Robin should never grow into bullying, or that 
a sensitive nature should not make Theodore a 
coward. 

Lady Chamberlayne was surprised, when Mr. 

58 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 59 

Mackenzie had been with the boys for two days, 
at his asking to see her for a few moments one 
morning. 

“It is nothing wrong, I hope, with my little 
grandson,” Lady Chamberlayne began. 

“ Oh no, nothing wrong.” 

“ You find him very backward, I am afraid.” 

“ Perhaps I do, but he is very intelligent and 
only too thoughtful. I came to ask if we might 
make an expedition to Cromer and buy some 
cricket things — bats, balls, and wickets ? ” 

“Cricket! oh, is not that a very dangerous game?” 

“Not as I shall let the boys begin, and I hope 
you will allow me to have a club in time with 
other boys.” 

“There are no boys in the neighbourhood,” 
Lady Chamberlayne said. “Theodore has had 
no companions.” 

“ No, and it is what he wants. May I venture 
to ask if his hair may be cut short ; it is time, 
I think, at his age. He was a little distressed 
yesterday by a lady on the beach asking in a 
loud voice, ‘ Is that a girl or a boy ? ' ” 

“ How excessively rude I ” Lady Chamberlayne 
said. “ Well, I must speak to Longhurst, and he 
must be well wrapt up in a shawl when his hair 
is taken off, or he will get cold.” 


GO 


MASTER MARTIN 


“I should like to order some books. Shall I 
give yon the list ? ” 

“ Oh no. I know nothing about children’s 
books. Mr. Harrison said everything that was 
necessary was to be had.” 

“ I heard from Mr. Harrison to-day,” Mr. 
Mackenzie said. “ He mentions two boys in the 
village who were anxious to get the place here 
to look after the pony. Cross and Press are the 
names. As he cannot come for some days, owing 
to the pressure of business, he says, with your 
permission, I may choose which boy I think most 
suitable.” 

“ Certainly, Mr. Mackenzie. I am so much of 
an invalid, I am not able to enter into these 
matters. I must thank you to act as you think 
best, only taking care my delicate little grand- 
son’s health is made the first consideration.” 

Mr. Mackenzie took the hint, and understood 
that he was not to trouble Lady Chamberlayne 
about details, and that he was free to follow his 
own inclination in the management of the boys. 
So much the better, he thought, as he went into 
the schoolroom, where he found the children at 
the table with their books open before them. 

Both were silent, and Mr. Mackenzie saw that 
Bobin Prescott was smothering a laugh, while 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 6 1 

Theodore had a very suspicious drop on his long 
eyelashes. 

“ Shut the books,” he said ; “ we will have a 
holiday to-day, and go to Cromer.” 

“That will be jolly,” Eobin said. “You and I 
can walk, sir, but he can’t, he is such a weak 
little chap.” 

“I am not weak,” Theodore began. “I can 
run ever so fast. I beat you yesterday ; you know 
I did.” 

“ P’raps I let you beat me to please you,” was 
the reply. 

“ Well, we will all three have a race on the 
sands, and perhaps I shall let Eobin beat me. 
Now, then, run and get your hats, and tell Mrs. 
Longhurst I want to speak to her.” 

Theodore ran gaily away, but Eobin lingered. 

“ He is only a baby, sir ; it is no fun playing 
with him.” 

“I expect he — if you mean Sir Theodore — finds 
it no fun to play with you.” 

“Well, I can’t help it; he does talk such rub- 
bish about a little old man with a big head and 
crooked legs he wants me to see and be kind to. 
I don’t know what he means, he is such a soft 
little chap, and only fit to play with girls — quite 
a coward, I expect.” 


62 


MASTER MARTIN 


Mr. Mackenzie said, “Look here, Prescott; you 
and I have been at Knapton three days, and never 
once have I heard Sir Theodore say — what he 
might well say — that you are rough with him, and 
tease him and laugh at him. You had been at it, 
I suspect, when I came into the room. As to his 
being a coward, look out that you are not the 
coward, for it is a coward’s part to bully any one 
who is smaller and weaker. From what I have 
seen already, I should say Sir Theodore has a big 
soul in that lit! le fragile body, and a spirit too ! 
So shut up, and let me hear no more complaints 
about a child younger and weaker than you are. 
Run off now ; I want to speak to Mrs. Longhurst.” 

Nurse had been standing at the schoolroom 
door waiting for Robin to leave the room. She 
had made up her mind to dislike the tutor, and 
was now on the defensive. 

“ I say, Mrs. Nurse.” 

“ Longhurst, if you please, sir ! ” 

“ Well, Mrs. Longhurst, then, I think Sir 
Theodore ought to have his hair cut short; he 
wishes for it himself, and as we are going iuto 
Cromer, I thought I might take him to the 
barber’s.” 

“ He’ll catch a stiff neck without his hair, sir,” 
and poor Nurse sighed as she thought of the loss 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 63 

of those golden locks she had tended with such 
care. “ ]\Ir. Short would call here to do it if you 
please to order him to do so. It has never been cut 
before — ^it always takes the curl out — but ” 

“ All right! then, we’ll call on Mr. Short and tell 
him to come to-morrow morning. I am to look 
after the boys who want to g.^t the place here to 
attend to the pony. Do you know anything of 
them?” 

“ I know Mrs. Press, sir. Jack’s mother ; she is 
a very respectable woman — a widow — and the 
other day when Sir Theodore fell into the pool, 
I took him into her cottage to dry. It is the 
first accident I have ever had with him, and I 
feel it very much — ^very much indeed, the way 
her ladyship took it.” 

“ It was only a sea bath, from what I hear, and 
I think dips in the sea would do the boy a vast 
deal of good. I hope you think he is happy 
under the new rule ? ” 

Nurse hesitated. 

“ It’s early days yet, sir, to know ; but I, who 
have nursed him from his cradle, can say a better 
little boy never lived, and I hope you’ll see to it, 
sir, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, but the 
other young gentleman is very rough with him ; 
he does tease him dreadful” 


64 


MASTEB MARTIN 


“ Oh, I’ll keep my eye on the boys, Mrs. 

Long hurst, is it ? But we must try to make 

Sir Theodore manly to fit him for school.” 

“ For school ! ” Nurse exclaimed. “ He is never 
going to be sent to school ? ” 

“Not yet — not for another year. Now,” 
said Mr. Mackenzie kindly, “don’t fret yourself 
about the boy. I know how good you have been 
to him, and how you must feel about handing 
him over to me ; but I will do my best to take 
care of him, you may depend on that.” 

Nurse was quite won over by the young tutor’s 
kind, frank manner, and from that time she 
ceased to look upon him as an intruder, and only 
wished she could be sure that Eobin Prescott was 
kind to her darling when the tutor’s back was 
turned. 

To the two boys’ great delight, Mr. Mackenzie 
said they should have the pony for the expedition 
to Cromer, which was three miles off. 

To their still greater delight, Mr. Mackenzie 
went to the stable-yard himself, and led the pony 
from the stall to get his saddle and bridle from 
the harness-room, and was beginning to put the 
saddle on its back, when the coachman and groom 
appeared, looking very much as if they thought 
he had no business to meddle in their domain. 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 6$ 

Like the fat pair of carriage-horses, they were 
the victims of having far less work than was good 
for them ; and yet, when the pony had arrived, 
the coachman had looked upon it as an unne- 
cessary appendage, and had told Mr. Harrison 
that they had no time to look after it, and such a 
rough creature, scarcely bigger than a “dawg,” 
might be left to take care of itself. 

But the surly coachman, like Mrs. Longhurst, 
had changed his mind about the tutor before he 
had left the yard with Sir Theodore on the pony’s 
back. 

“I didn’t know a learned gentleman knew 
aught about horses,” the coachman said to the 
groom. “He knows how to saddle the little 
beast, and he is very well spoken and has a 
handsome face ; but to call that a pony ! ” 

The name of the pony caused some discussion 
on the way to Cromer. As he was a native 
of the Shetland Isles, Mr. Mackenzie called him 
his fellow-countryman, and suggested a variety 
of Scotch names for the boys to choose from. 
“Donald ” was decided upon just as they reached 
Cromer, and stopped before a shop opposite the 
church, where Mr. Mackendo went in, giving a 
boy who was lounging about, a penny to stand by 
Donald’s head while he went into the shop. 


66 


MASTER MARTIN 


A bat for each boy was bought, Mr. Mac- 
kenzie suiting their size and weight to their 
owners. It was difficult to find one light enough 
for Theodore’s slender fingers, while Robin, who 
had played cricket before, was proud to wield a 
much heavier one. Then there was the ball to 
choose, and a box full of little round white balls 
for rounders. 

All this was a delightful experience for Theo- 
dore, and he could scarcely restrain his excitement. 
He had a way of dancing and moving his hands 
when he was pleased ; and Robin said — 

“ What are you fidgeting about like that for ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I feel so pleased, buying 
the cricket things.” 

“ The cricket things ! Why can’t you say 
wickets, and bats, and balls ? ” 

Theodore’s sunny face clouded over, but he 
made no rejoinder. 

The next visit was to the bookseller’s, where 
Mr. Mackenzie handed in a list to the master of 
the shop, and bought two magazines which were 
lying on the counter. 

“ Now we have only to go to Mr. Short to ask 
him to come to cut off your hair, Theodore.” 

“ Oh, now ! We can let him do it now, please, 
tutor. ” 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 67 

A loud laugh from Robin made the colour 
rush to Theodore’s face. “ I ought to have said 
sir — not tutor,” he said. 

‘‘ Never mind ; tutor is rather a pleasant variety. 
We must leave the message for Mr. Short and 
then turn homewards. You shall ride Donald 
going back, Robin.” 

Robin was very pleased to show how well he 
could ride, and was perfectly independent of the 
rein which Mr. Mackenzie had held when Theo- 
dore was on Donald’s back. 

“ May I have a gallop, sir ? ” he asked. 

“ When we get out of the town on the Sher- 
ringham Road ; but you are not to go out of 
sight. Donald’s short legs do not go over much 
ground when at a walking pace, but he goes 
fast enough at something between a canter and a 
gallop. When you get to that cottage we see at 
the end of this road, turn and meet us or wait 
for us. Do you hear ? And ” 

“ All right, sir. I know how to ride.” 

Away went Donald, after a sharp cut with the 
whip across his neck, which he resented as an 
indignity. He threw up his heels and lowered 
his head, and was off like the wind, out of sight 
beyond the cottage in the far distance, and Mr. 
Mackenzie, with Theodore doing his best to keep 


68 


MASTER MARTIN 


up with his long strides with his little steps, 
followed. Theodore was well content to have 
Mr. Mackenzie to himself, and began to talk to 
him as he had talked to Mrs. Longhurst. 

“ I want you, tutor — I mean sir — to go and see 
Master Martin.” 

“ Who is Master Martin ? — That young scape- 
grace has gone out of sight ? ” he said by way 
of interlude. — “ Who is Master Martin ? ” 

“ A very nice old man, with a big head and 
funny legs, who lives in a house he built for him- 
self not very far from our gate ; but it is such a 
little house on the moor, all amongst the furze- 
bushes, that you would never see it unless you 
looked for it. You don’t pass it on the high-road. 
You’ve got to take a turn across the moor.” 

They had turned by the cottage now, and 
another long straight road lay before them, but 
nothing was to be seen of Donald and his rider. 

“ I expect they have got home by this time,” 
Theodore said. “ Don’t you ? ” 

“Let us hope Pride has not had a bad fall. 
Are you tired of walking so fast, my boy ? ” for 
Theodore’s little feet began to falter a little, 
and his breath came fast in his efforts to keep 
up with Mr. Mackenzie’s strides. 

“ I am just a little bit tired ; but never mind.” 


THE TUTOR MAKES FRIENDS 69 

“ Here ! get on my back, and we shall get over 
the ground faster. — Now then ! ” Mr. Mackenzie 
knelt down and drew Theodore’s arms round his 
neck. “ That’s it now ; hold on fast.” 

Theodore laughed merrily. 

“I never thought my tutor would take me 
pick-a-back. You are so funny, and ” — with em- 
phasis — “ so very nice.” 

On they went, but there was no sign of Robin 
and the pony. At last they came upon Master 
Martin sitting on the bank with a bundle of fish- 
ing-nets by his side, and the blood trickling from 
his forehead. 


CHAPTEE yn 

IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 

“ Hallo ! what is the matter ? ” Mr. Mackenzie 
said as Theodore scrambled down from his ele- 
vated position on the tutor’s back and went up 
to Master Martin. 

“ What has happened to you, dear Master 
Martin ? the child said, pulling out his hand- 
kerchief and trying to wipe the blood from the 
wound in the big overhanging forehead. 

Master Martin lifted bewildered eyes to Sir 
Theodore’s face and said, “ I was tramping along 
the road when he knocked me down.” 

“ Who knocked you down ? ” 

“A young gent galloping on a pony, sir. It’s 
rather hard a poor man can’t get along without 
being hurted by a young villain, that it is.” 

“ But he did not do it on purpose, Master 
Martin,” Theodore said ; “of course he didn’t do 
it on purpose.” 

“ He never stopped, and only shouted out, the 

70 



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IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 


71 

young rascal, ‘Pick yourself up, old ’un.’ But 
it’s always the same — always the same. There’s 
never no place for me ; all the youngsters are 
alike.” 

“ Not all — not all,” Theodore said. “ I’m so 
sorry for you.” 

“This youngster, anyhow, shall be taught 
better,” Mr. Mackenzie said to the old man. 
“ He disobeyed my orders, and went galloping 
off on the pony at a mad pace. He shall be well 
punished.” 

“ Oh, perhaps he could not stop Donald when 
once he was off, sir. He ran away with him.” 

“ That may be, but he had no business to slash 
him across the neck as he did ; no pony would 
stand such treatment.” 

The next thing to do was to help Master 
Martin home. 

“Now, my man, let me bind this handker- 
chief round your head, and then we’ll see you 
home.” 

Poor Master Martin rose to his feet, but he 
was dizzy, and put out his hand for support. 

“ What’s to be done with them nets ? I am as 
weak as an infant.” 

Mr. Mackenzie threw the bundle of nets over 
his shoulder, and taking Master Martin’s arm, 


MASTER MARTIN 


72 

said, “.Come, we must get you home. Walk on 
the other side of him, Theodore.” 

But Master Martin sank down on the turf-bank 
again, and shaking his head in a melancholy way, 
said, “ I’m done for.” 

“ Not a bit of it ; it’s not a deep cut ; your 
forehead is only just grazed,” Mr. Mackenzie said. 
« Come!” 

But Master Martin showed no signs of 
“coming,” and sat in a state of hopeless dejec- 
tion, with his crooked legs doubled up under him 
and his hand pressing his forehead. 

Mr. Mackenzie began to be puzzled as to what 
he should do next, for he was uneasy about 
Robin, and wondering whether Donald had 
thrown him off his back as a revenge for his 
sharp cut across his shaggy neck. 

"We shall have to leave him,” Mr. Mackenzie 
said, “ and send a cart for him.” 

“ Oh, I shouldn’t like him to be left all alone, 
sir,” Theodore exclaimed; “some of the rude 
boys might come and teaze him. I’ll stay with 
Master Martin.” 

It cost Theodore something to make this offer. 
It was a lonely road, stretching out, like many flat 
East Country roads, in long straight lines in both 
directions, and with a fir plantation on either side. 


IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 73 

“ ril stay, sir, if you think you won’t be a very 
long time gone — I’ll stay ! ” 

Theodore’s heart beat fast as Mr. Mackenzie 
took him at his word. 

“Very well,” he said. “I can get over the 
ground faster than you can, and I’ll find some 
one to help the poor old man home.” 

With this Mr. Mackenzie was gone. Theodore 
watched his figure getting less and less, as he 
walked at a great speed along the straight road. 

He went close to Master Martin and said, 
“ Does your head ache very badly ? I have a 
headache sometimes.” 

“ Don’t suppose you was ever knocked down 
by a ’oss, was you ? ” 

“ No ; but I fell out of a swing and hit my 
head.” 

“Humph!” was the only rejoinder Master 
Martin made. 

“I thought you’d like me to stay with you 
while my tutor went to fetch somebody to help 
you to get home. He does walk so fast. He 
looks no bigger now than one of my men in the 
Noah’s Ark.” 

“ Humph ! ” was again the only rejoinder with 
a sigh, and then a murmured “ Oh jear I oh 
jear ! ” 


MASTER MARTIN 


74 

Theodore was very much disappointed, and he 
began to feel the solitude oppressive. 

The wind made moan in the fir-trees behind, 
and those opposite on the other side of the road 
looked very dark and mysterious. Every rustle 
and every sound made him look behind him with 
anxious, wide-open eyes, and he began to be 
filled with a nameless terror that something or 
some one might come out of the fir-wood. 

If only Master Martin would speak, and not 
only say “ Humph ! ” and sigh out “ Oh jear, 
jear ! ” Theodore would have felt comforted and 
less afraid. But his child-heart, brave and tender 
as it was, began to sink within him when no one 
appeared from either end of that long straight 
road. 

At last, from the direction least expected, 
there was a dull sound of wheels, and a large 
object was seen in the' distance, coming slowly 
but surely towards the place where Theodore 
and Master Martin were sitting. As it came 
nearer, and was eagerly scanned by Theodore’s 
blue eyes, it took shape and form, and Theodore 
springing to his feet exclaimed — 

“ Oh, I am so glad, so very glad ! It’s the 
basket-cart, and Mrs. Broome will help Master 
Martin home.” 


IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 75 

He ran to meet the van, his golden curls 
flapping in the breeze, and very soon Mr. Curtis, 
who had been riding on the footboard smoking 
a short clay pipe, got down, and calling out 
“Wo-ho!” to the steady-going horse, said to 
his wife — 

‘‘Mother! here’s the little gent all by him- 
self.” 

“Oh, please, Mrs. Broome,” Theodore began, 
“ will you — can you let poor Master Martin ride 
in your cart? He — he has been knocked down 
by ” 

“ Bless the dear child ! ” Mrs. Curtis exclaimed, 
letting her portly figure down from the steps 
with due caution, the skein of worsted with 
which she was mending Curtis’s stockings round 
her neck, and the stocking itself on her left arm. 
“ Bless the dear child ! Why, I declare it’s Sir 
Theodore ! All alone ! Where’s Nurse, my dear? 
It’s a mercy no gipsy tramps haven’t got hold of 
you. All alone, and nobody with you I ” 

“ Yes,” Theodore said, “ somebody is with me, 
or,” correcting himself, “ I’m with somebody. 
Don’t you see poor Master Martin on the bank 
there ? ” 

“ Lor, poor old fellow, he is always in trouble. 
Yes, I’ll give him a lift with pleasure; and if 


MASTER MARTIN 


76 

you’ll condescend to ride along with ns, we shall 
be proud.” 

“ Oh, thank you very much, Mrs. Broome.” 

“ Curtis, my dear ! Curtis is my name.” 

“I beg your pardon; I thought it was either 
basket or broom. I shall be so pleased to ride 
with you to Knapton, but do come on now and 
make Master Martin get into your cart. I 
expect we shall meet my tutor soon ; he left me 
with Master Martin while he went to get a cart 
or something to take him home in.” 

“A pretty tutor to leave a young gentleman 
like you all alone with that poor old man ! ” 

“Oh, but I wished to be left; I liked to be 
left, though it did seem an enormous time till 
I saw you coming. At first I was not quite sure 
it was the van, and then, when I saw the brushes, 
and brooms, and baskets waggling in the wind, I 
knew it was you, and I was glad.” 

Theodore was in the van now, and they jogged 
over the quarter of a mile along which he had 
run to meet it, to the place where Master Martin 
sat, hunched up, with his legs crossed and his 
big head resting on his hand. 

“ Master Martin, hi ! ” Mr. Curtis said. “ Wake 
up ; we are going to take you along with us.” 

“Yes, Master Martin, and it’s so nice in the 


IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 77 

van; it’s the dearest little house, and such a 
pretty picture hanging up.” 

By means of pulling and shaking, Master 
Martin was hauled upon his feet by Mr. Curtis. 
He certainly was very tiresome; he began to 
murmur, “ He didn’t want to be a trouble to no 
one ; he’d walk along home and take his time.” 

“Stuff and nonsense!” Mrs. Curtis said. “You 
just do as this dear little gentleman wishes, and 
we’ll soon have you at home. I’ll take a turn 
out of the way for once to oblige you, and set 
you down at the comer leading to the Hall. 
What have you done to your forehead, eh ? ” 
Master Martin shook his head sorrowfully, and 
lifting the hankerchief which Mr. Mackenzie had 
tied round the cut, he said — 

“It’s a bad job, that it is, and all comes of a 
young rascal galloping like mad and throwing of 
me down. They are all alike — all alike — gentry 
and poor boys; they don’t care what they do 
to a poor old man.” 

“Now, I call that very ungrateful. Master 
Martin, when this dear little gentleman is that 
good and kind to you, that it’s quite surprising.” 

“Yes, yes, maybe — maybe,” Master Martin 
said; “but the rest of ’em are all alike — all 
alike.” 


78 


MASTER MARTIN 


“He’s always full of cranks, my dear,” Mrs. 
Curtis said in an aside to Theodore. “ You 
mustn’t mind. Poor old man ! he has lived alone 
so long, with no one to care for him, that he has 
got cross-grained. But never mind ; > don’t you 
take it to heart, my dear. This is a queer world, 
and them you does most for cares less about you. 
There’s Curtis there, I’ve done everything for 
him — I couldn’t do more. I married him because 
he seemed so put to it to get on, but he ain’t too 
grateful. We must not look for gratitude, and — 
well, we can do without it.” 

Theodore might have felt even more distressed 
that all his efforts for Master Martin did not seem 
to please him had he not been so interested in 
looking through Mrs. Curtis’s house on wheels, 
that for the time everything else was forgotten. 

While Master Martin sat on the footboard of 
the cart, propped up by a sack at his back, and 
Mr. Curtis walked by the side of the old horse at 
a jogtrot pace, Sir Theodore was examining Mrs. 
Curtis’s possessions. Her bead-mats, her china 
plates, set up carefully on shelves, protected by 
strong strips of wood from falling ; her workbox, 
with mother-of-pearl pattern on the lid ; her big 
Bible with gilt edges; her “little curiosities,” as 
she called them, in a little cupboard with a glass 


IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 79 

door, which was the pride of her heart. Curtis 
had nailed it up in a corner securely, and within 
its doors was a medley of articles all carefully 
treasured. Pink shells ; a box covered with velvet 
and with gilt feet ; a cup with “ For a Good Boy” 
on it in gilt letters ; a child’s whip and a trumpet, 
and a pair of little shoes ; a good many Christmas 
cards ; and in the middle, nailed to the back of 
the cupboard, two mourning cards with black 
edges and embossed weeping willows, with names 
below. 

These two cards told the story of Mrs. Curtis’s 
early life. One was in memory of her first hus- 
band, the other bore the name of “Bertie, the 
darling son of Jane and Henry Blake, aged six 
years.** 

Theodore had the instinct of a true gentleman, 
and as he stood before the cupboard, the doors of 
which Mrs. Curtis had opened, he thought he 
should like to know about Bertie, who was six 
years old, just a year younger than he was. 
“But she might not like me to ask,’* he thought. 

Mrs. Curtis, however, forestalled the question. 

“ Bertie was my little boy, my dear, and that’s 
why I love the picture of ‘ Bubbles.* It*s his 
image — his born image ; and, if I may venture to 
say so, there’s a look of my Bertie in you. I was 


8o 


MASTER MARTIN 


married long ago to my first husband, and when 
he and Bertie died — well, I thought I should 
die too ; but, you see, I got over it, and I put the 
little money my husband left me into the basket 
trade, and then bought the van and married 
Curtis. He was in a poor plight, and glad enough 
to work for me and feed the horse ; and a man is 
a protection on lonely roads, though he is only 
Tim. I don’t want to disparage him ; he is well 
enough, and a good husband — as they go. But 
I ought to ask pardon for troubling a little gen- 
tleman like you with my story.” 

“ I like to hear it very much, Mrs. Curtis. I 
should like to live in this dear little house and 
travel about the roads.” 

“Oh, you’d soon get tired of it — ^jog, jog, 
month in and month out, and sometimes such 
poor trade we can scarce pay our way. There’s 
some one calling,” said Mrs. Curtis, locking up her 
precious cupboard, and hastening to the door with 
Sir Theodore. 

It was Mr. Mackenzie, who, on seeing Master 
Martin crouching on the footboard alone, felt a 
sudden fear that something had happened to 
Theodore. 

“Where is Sir Theodore Chamberlayne ? ” he 

asked. 


IN THE HOUSE ON WHEELS 8 1 

“ Here ! here ! I am quite safe. Oh, I have 
had a delightful ride with Mrs. Curtis, sir. 
You should see her dear little weenie room, and 
her ” 

“Well, come along now. I have got the 
spring-cart here, and we shall be home in no 
time.” 

“Mrs. Curtis is so kind to me and Master 
Martin ; might I ride home in the van ? ” 

“No, no! We are very late as it is, and I 
must be quick. Jump in, Theodore ; the old man 
will get home quick enough with these kind 
people.” 

“ They are very kind,” Theodore said. “ Good- 
bye, Mrs. Curtis. I hope I shall see you again 
very soon ; thank you very much for showing me 
your little house. Good-bye, Master Martin;” 
and then the spring-cart used at the Hall for 
errands at Cromer and Aylsham was quickly out 
of sight, Mr. Mackenzie driving the old cob, which 
did duty in many ways about the estate, at a 
quicker pace than he liked, feeling that his first 
expedition with the two boys had hardly been a 
success. 

“Well,” Mrs. Curtis said, “I never saw such a 
darling as this child, but one. He is too good for 
this world, as the other was, bless him ! ” 

7 


82 


MASTER MARTIN 


Mr. Curtis made no rejoinder to this remark. 
With “ Bertie ” he had nothing to do ; he belonged 
to a distant period in which he took no part. 

“ It beats me, Master Martin, that you ain't 
more grateful to Sir Theodore.” 

Master Martin lifted his heavy head and looked 
at Mrs. Curtis with his dull prominent eyes and 
said, “ That’s all you know about it ! ” 


CHAPTER Vm 


RESCUE 

Mr. Mackenzie did not seem inclined to talk on 
the drive home; and Theodore having asked if 
Robin was safe, and getting for answer, almost 
roughly spoken, “ Yes, he’s all right,” and taking 
a view of the tutor’s side-face, which was very 
grave, he asked no more questions. “He is 
vexed about something,” Theodore thought ; “ he 
isn’t really cross, so I won’t tease him.” 

Theodore ran upstairs when they reached the 
Hall, to get ready for his dinner, and gave Mrs. 
Longhurst a confused account of all that had 
happened, in which Mrs. Curtis, Master Martin, 
the picture of the boy like Bertie, and the dim 
little house on wheels were all mixed up in a 
confused history, of which Mrs. Longhurst justly 
said she could neither make head nor tail. 

“I sat alone on the Sherringham Road with 

Master Martin. You don’t know how glad I was 

to see the baskets and brooms and 

83 


84 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ I know it’s a quarter to two, and your grand- 
mamma will be put out if you ain’t ready. As to 
your being alone on the road, well ” 

Sir Theodore was gone before Mrs. Longhurst 
added to this — 

“Well, a pretty tutor to leave a child alone 
like that. He is too young, and ain’t used to 
children, and thinks too much of learning, though 
he is very well spoken. Still, a governess would 
have suited better.” 

When Theodore reached the dining-room, he 
found Mr. Mackenzie there, and Lady Chamber- 
layne just coming in. 

“ Good-morning, Grannie,” Theodore said. 

“ Good - morning, Theodore. Where is your 
little friend ? ” 

Mr. Mackenzie answered the question. 

“Eobin will not come down to luncheon to- 
day ” 

“Is he ill? Oh, I hope it is no infectious 
disease.” 

“He is perfectly well,” was the answer, “but I 
found it necessary to punish him for disobedience.” 

As it was not Theodore who was punished. 
Lady Chamberlayne did not pursue the subject, 
and a somewhat ominous silence fell upon the 
small party. 


HCSCXJIi 


85 

Generally Mr. Mackenzie kept up a bright con- 
versation with the two little boys, encouraging 
them to talk, and often interesting Lady Cham- 
berlayne, who began by apparently taking no 
notice of what was going on, and then at last 
finding that the young tutor was a very pleasant 
companion. She almost meditated the possibility 
of asking the Vicar and two or three people to 
dine, an event which had not happened for many 
a long day ; but if the tutor could entertain them, 
she might be able to bear the fatigue ! 

Theodore kept silent about the pony and his 
waiting on the road with Master Martin. He 
thought it might be “ telling tales,” which would 
not be kind to Kobin; and if Mr. Mackenzie 
did not say anytliing of what had happened, he 
determined he would not do so. 

When the luncheon was over, Mr. Mackenzie 
told Theodore to run away, and he would join 
him in the schoolroom in a few minutes. 

Theodore thought to himself, “ He is going to 
tell Grannie about the pony; he always tells 
everything. I think I will go and see Kobin. I 
am very sorry about him. He hates rice-pudding, 
and it was such a nice gooseberry-pudding to- 
day.” 

Theodore found the schoolroom empty, and 


86 


MASTER MARTIN 


then went along the corridor to the bedroom 
where Robin slept. He tapped rather timidly at 
the door, and turned the handle with some hesi- 
tation. But the door was locked on the inside, 
and to Theodore’s question, “May I come in?’’ 
there was no answer. 

“ Robin, I do so want to see you ; do open the 
door.” 

But still no answer, and Theodore gave up at 
last and went to the schoolroom. He got out his 
Latin’ grammar and began to learn a declension, 
but his thoughts were wandering over the events 
of the morning — the shopping in Cromer and 
the finding of Master Martin sitting disconso- 
lately by the hedge on the Sherringham Road. 
Presently he heard voices below in the garden 
under the schoolroom window, and the sound of 
hurrying feet, and Mr. Mackenzie’s voice, “ Fetch 
a ladder, and be quick about it.” 

“Oh, I must run down and see what it is,” 
Theodore said. “The tutor did not tell me I 
was to stay in the schoolroom, so it won’t be 
disobedience.” 

Theodore was running off to the hall when he 
met Mrs. Longhurst. 

“ Oh, my dear ! my dear ! there’s such a fuss. 
That naughty boy. Master Prescott, has climbed 


RESCUE 


87 

out of his bedroom window, and he is hanging 
on a branch of the great pear-tree, which may 
give way any minute. Dear me! it is a pity 
that boy ever came here. Those that brought 
him here have a great deal to answer for. Why 
can’t folks leave well alone, I say ? ” 

Theodore had not heard all this speech of 
Nurse’s, for he had scampered past her, and was 
soon under the window, where a knot of servants 
had assembled. 

Mr. Mackenzie’s face was very stern and grave 
as he stood by the roots of the old pear-tree 
waiting for the ladder. 

Robin’s courage, of which he was so proud, had 
deserted him. He was calling out for help in a 
loud, shrill voice — 

“ I can’t move ; my foot has caught in a branch. 
Oh, I shall drop down directly. Pray, pray, help 
me ! ” 

“ I have sent for a ladder,” Mr. Mackenzie said. 
“ Don’t make such a row.” 

“It’s all your fault if I am killed — all your 
fault. Oh, this branch is cracking ; I am falling ! ” 

It was at this critical moment that Mr. Mac- 
kenzie took the ladder fetched from the stable- 
yard, and putting it against the wall, had climbed 
up to the place where Robin hung. 


88 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ Now, then, give me your hand.” 

“ I dare not ! I dare not ! ” 

“ Do as I tell you. I will hold you. Do as I 
bid you.” 

But obedience had never been part of poor 
Robin’s education, and he still continued to cry 
out that he was falling and should be killed ! 

“Put your foot on the rung of the ladder, I 
say, and give me your hand,” Mr. Mackenzie said. 
But, paralysed with fear, Robin still hesitated. 

“One of you,” Mr. Mackenzie called to the 
men who stood at the foot of the ladder, “be 
ready to catch him if I find I cannot hold him.” 

The groom did as he was bid, and in another 
moment Mr. Mackenzie’s strong arms had taken 
forcible hold of Robin, still clinging to the branch 
of the pear-tree, and dropped him into the 
groom’s outstretched arms. 

There was silence in the little knot of servants 
who had watched the rescue of the boy, and not 
a word was spoken till Mr. Mackenzie had, with 
his hand on Robin’s shoulder, marched him off to 
the front of the house. 

Now all danger was passed, Robin began to 
try to get free of the tutor’s hold, but it was in 
vain, and as the two figures disappeared round 
the corner of the house, several voices said— 


RESCUE 


89 


“ That young gent has got his match.” 

“ And a good thing too. He’s a young Turk, 
if I’m not mistaken,” said the coachman, who had 
just arrived on the scene at as quick a pace as his 
short fat legs could achieve, breathing heavily 
with asthmatic wheezes between every word. 
“ That pony was all of a lather when he galloped 
into the stable-yard. It’s a wonder Sam caught 
the bridle; if he hadn’t, the young gent would 
have been dashed against the wall and broke his 
head, most like. Them Scotch ponies are regular 
little furies when their spirit’s up.” 

Theodore listened to all this conversation with 
interest, and was turning to follow the tutor and 
his refractory pupil into the house, when Mrs. 
Longhurst said — 

“You had better not go and meddle, my dear. 
Don’t make that boy your enemy.” 

“ My enemy ! ” Theodore repeated. “ What do 
you mean. Nurse?” 

“ I mean what I say. He is a naughty boy, 
and the sooner he is packed off the better.” 

Theodore went rather sorrowfully to the school- 
room, and opening his books, once more tried to 
fix his attention on his lessons. But it was no 
use trying. His thoughts went running over 
Kobin’s mad gallop. Master Martin’s wounded 


MASTER MARTIN 


90 

head, the long waiting on the road, and finally 
Eobin hanging on the old pear-tree. 

Presently, Mr. Mackenzie came into the room, 
and said kindly — 

“ My poor little lad, you have had a sorry time 
of it to-day, but we’ll get on better now. Would 
you like to come and show me Master Martin’s 
house, and find out whether he is much hurt ? ” 

“Oh, I shall like that, sir,” Theodore said; 
“only I am not sure whether Master Martin will 
let you go into his house, and I am not sure 
whether you could stand up in it, if you did 
get in.” 

“ Then I shall have to send you first or creep 
in on all fours.” 

“That would be fun,” Theodore exclaimed; 
“but, sir, I hope you are not very angry with 
Eobin, and won’t pack him off, as Nurse says you 
should.” 

“ No, I have put him on his trial for another 
week ; he never had any one before to master him, 
and so all allowance must be made for him. I 
am in hopes I shall lick him into shape.” 

Theodore’s eyes opened very wide. 

“ What does that mean, sir ? ” 

“ It’s a process you don’t want at present, my 
boy. If ever you do want it, you will understand 


RESCUE 


91 

what it means. I ought to go to Knapton to see 
which of the two ho5'S is to come to look after 
Donald, but that will be too far for you to walk. 
So, when I have seen Master Martin, I will leave 
you to run home by yourself and go on to 
Knapton.” 

“Oh, Master Martin’s cottage is not far. We 
just turn out of our gates and then in at a little 
gate, and through a field, and then on the moor 
there is Master Martin’s house. I’ll soon show 
you the way, sir.” 

“All right!” Mr. Mackenzie said. “Now 
then, get your cap and we’ll start.” 

Theodore had lost all shyness with his tutor by 
this time, and he chattered of many things as he 
walked by his side. 

“ I should so like you to choose the boy, sir, to 
come and live here whose mother was so kind 
to me when I fell into the pool tiying to get 
pin-patches — periwinkles, I mean. Grannie says 
pin- patch is a vulgar name.” 

Mr. Mackenzie laughed. 

“ It’s a word I never heard of, my lad,” he said ; 
“ what does it mean ? ” 

“I will show you if we have periwinkles for 
tea. They have a little round thing over the 
door of their house — the shell, you know, and 


MASTER MARTIN 


92 

Mrs. Longhurst takes a pin to pick it off and get 
the fish out of the shell.” 

"Oh,” Mr. Mackenzie said, “I understand. 
The little round thing is the patch, and the pin 
is the best weapon to get it off.” 

Theodore was delighted at this appreciative 
reply, and that the tutor did not call the name 
“pin-patch ” vulgar, and tell him not to use it. 

When they reached the moor Theodore 
said — 

“Stop, sir. Try if you can find the house — 
Master Martin’s little house. It’s that humpy 
thing just where the moor sinks down behind 
the furze-bushes. Come nearer, then you will 
see it. Isn’t it wonderful that Master Martin 
made it himself, and that no one ever thought of 
going to see him. The boys down in the village 
make fun of him, and no one is kind to him ; that 
is why I like to be kind to him,” Theodore said. 

“An excellent reason,” Mr. Mackenzie replied. 
" But here we are. I suppose it looks very 
like a beaver’s hut, or the home of an ancient 
Briton.” 

Theodore took the rope off the point of the 
paling, and went softly up to the door. It was 
just ajar, and he peeped in, saying — 

“Master Martin, I’ve come to know if your 


RICSCTJH Q ^ 

head aches after the fall, and IVe brought my 
tutor to see you.” 

Master Martin now appeared at the door. The 
handkerchief was still bound round his head, 
and added to his strauge appearance as he stood 
just within the shadow of the low doorway, and 
shaded his eyes with his hand. 

“ Good afternoon,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “ Sir 
Theodore has come to inquire for you. I am 
going to walk into Knapton, and I will get you 
something to put on your wound, if you will let 
me look at it. 

“ Get out ! ” was the reply. “ I want none of 
your physic. You’d best leave me alone.” 

‘‘Very well; but it strikes me you might be 
more civil to this little friend of yours.” 

“ Friend ! I’ve got no friend that I knows of. 
I’ve plenty of enemies. Leave me alone, will ’ee?” 

Mr. Mackenzie turned to pass through the 
opening between the sticks again, but Theodore 
lingered. 

“I should like to stay a little while, sir. 
May I ? I am so near home. Do let me.” 

“ Very well ; but I don’t think it will be much 
use. Five minutes, Theodore, not any longer.” 

“ I can guess five minutes, sir, and I will mind 
not to stay longer.” 


MASTER MARTIN 


94 

And then once more Theodore was alone with 
Master Martin. He had no sweet cake as a 
peace-offering this time, and he stood irresolute, 
not knowing how to make advances. 

“ Who is yon gent ? ” Master Martin asked. 

‘"My tutor; he is so jolly and nice. He is 
just as sorry for you as I am.” 

“ Humph ! Is he ? ” 

“Yes. You know you told me you liked to 
see me. That is why I came again, and I thought 
you might like to see my tutor as well. I learned 
such a pretty verse to-day in my daily text-book. 
If you sit down on your bench I will repeat it 
to you.” 

Master Martin flopped down on his rough seat 
and tucked his crooked legs under him. 

“ Go on,” he said. 

And Theodore, standing in the westering light, 
which made a halo of glory of his golden hair, 
repeated in slow, child-like tones these words — 
“But I say unto you. Love your enemies, do 
good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
that despitefully use you, and persecute you.” 


OHAPTEK IX 

A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST 

“ That’s all very fine ! ” Master Martin said ; 
“and I’d like to know who ever loved an 
enemy, eh ? ” 

Theodore was rather at a loss. 

“ I daresay it would be hard to do it, but we 
might try,” he said. “ You see,” he went on, “ I 
don’t quite know how I should feel, because I’ve 
not got an enemy ; but I might try to love him 
if I had one.” 

“Well, suppose you did; what then?” 

“Then after a long time he might love me, 
and be my friend instead of my enemy.” 

“ A likely matter ! ” and Master Martin gave a 
little chuckling laugh, adding, “ You are a queer 
little ’un — very queer.” 

Theodore had nothing to say to this ; he did 
not understand why Master Martin thought him 
queer. He had often heard Mrs. Longhurst say 
the housekeeper had a “ queer temper,” and that 

95 


MASTER MARTIN 


96 

her ladyship — meaning his grandmother — had 
“ queer fancies ; but he did not know how to 
apply the word to himself. 

“ I was only to stay five minutes,” Theodore 
said after a pause, “ and I must go now ; but I 
will come again, if you please.” 

“ If I please ? Of course I please.” 

“ Then you like to see me. Master Martin ? ” 
Theodore asked in a delighted voice. 

Master Martin nodded. 

“ Then I will come again, and bring you some 
more cakes, and read you something out of one 
of my books. Shall I ? ” 

Again a nod, but this time accompanied with 
the words, “ I’ll bet you’ll never make an enemy, 
even in this wicked world.” 

“ I hope not,” Theodore said, as he ran away ; 
his golden hair, which was doomed to fall under 
Mr. Short’s scissors, gleaming for the last time 
in the sunshine, as he called out, “Good-bye! 
good-bye. Master Martin ; I’ll come again.” 

Master Martin watched the little figure till it 
was out of sight, and his thoughts went back to 
days long since past, when he was a little boy in 
a village far away by the sea in Devonshire. 

Theodore’s words had brought back that time ; 
he could hear his mother’s voice, he could re- 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST 


97 

member how, when she lay dying, she spoke to 
him of God, and bid him strive to please Him 
and be a good boy. Then all that time seemed 
to fade away, and Master Martin remembered 
only his life in the house of an uncle, who had 
promised his mother to take care of him, but 
In whose house he had received nothing but 
ankindness and neglect. 

Then he ran away and joined a travelling 
circus, and became an acrobat, twisting his limbs 
and turning somersaults at every country fair in 
the part of England where the circus travelled all 
through the early spring, summer, and autumn 
months. 

So he had earned a living, till one day, when 
the show was at Norwich for Tombland Fair, he 
had fallen from a trapeze, and had so injured his 
back that his growth was stunted and his legs 
shrivelled up under him. 

Master Martin had been discharged from the 
hospital crippled for the rest of his life. This 
was years ago, and ever since he had lived as he 
could, picking up odd jobs in the country towns 
of Norfolk. 

At the seaport town of Yarmouth he had 
learned to make the fishermen’s nets and the 

rough baskets, which craft had been taught him 

G 


MASTER MARTIN 


98 

by a kindly woman who had pitied his forlorn 
condition, and had been perhaps the only person, 
except little Theodore, who had befriended him. 
For, as we know, Master Martin’s manners, as 
well as his appearance, were not engaging ; and 
when his old friend at Yarmouth died, he left the 
town and wandered along the coast till he came 
to Knapton. In a dip of the moorland Master 
Martin had built his curious hut, which escaped 
observation from its position, and as Theodore 
said, looked like a hump in the heather when it 
was seen by any chance passer-by. 

It was strange how the presence of the little 
golden-haired boy had sent Master Martin’s 
thoughts back into the far past of his childhood, 
when his mother called him “ her little Marty,” 
and smoothed his hair with her feeble hands, and 
spoke to him of God and His love. 

I do not know how it was that the chord of 
long-past memories was touched by Theodore’s 
hand, but when Master Martin lay down that 
night in the corner of his hut to sleep, he dreamed 
of his mother, and heard her voice saying, ‘‘ Be a 
good boy, Marty ; be a good boy.” 

How often the words of a good mother come 
back over the waste of years, and, scarcely heeded 
when first spoken, become as a message from the 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST 99 

dead, and awaken repentance and longing to 
amend, in the man’s heart ! 

Mrs. Press was busy with her washing that 
bright spring afternoon, when she was a little 
flustered by seeing a tall young gentleman stand- 
ing at the door. 

“ Does Mrs. Press live here ? ” 

“Yes, sir/’ Mrs. Press said, hastily wiping 
the soapsuds from her hands with her apron, 
and coming forward with a very red face, ner- 
vously untying the strings of the apron and 
throwing it behind her. “ Yes, sir, I am Mrs. 
Press, if you please. I am sorry I am so untidy ; 
you must please to excuse it. I was washing a 
few fine things for the lady at the vicarage — 
wanted in a hurry — but I am not often so out of 
sorts in the afternoon.” 

“ All right,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “ I am sorry 
I came at an inconvenient time of day, but I 
wanted to see your boy, who wishes to get the 
place at the Hall. I hear a good character of 
him from the schoolmaster, whom I have just 
seen. I only fear, from what he says, that the 
boy is not strong enough for the place.” 

“ My boy is small, sir, and not so tall as some 
others, but he is strong and willing,” Mrs. Press 


100 


MASTER MARTIN 


said. “We all have our faults, sir, but I will 
say a better boy than my Jack never lived. 
Since his poor father was lost he has done all he 
could for me. Some folks say he should be put 
to the fishing trade, but I have got that horror 
of the sea since my poor husband left me, never 
to come back, that I feel as though I could not 
bear to see him put off in a boat.” 

“Well,” Mr. Mackenzie replied kindly, “I can 
understand what you feel, and I will engage your 
boy to come up to-morrow morning to the Hall, 
and give him a week’s trial.” 

“ Thank you, sir, kindly,” Mrs. Press said. “ I 
am sure my Jack will do his best, and I am more 
thankful than I can say, to get him a good place.” 

“He is to have five shillings a week and his 
board, and to come by seven o’clock every morn- 
ing and make himself, as the advertisements say, 
‘generally useful.’ Good afternoon.” 

When Mr. Mackenzie was gone, Mrs. Press 
returned to her wash-tub, telling herself that she 
never saw a nicer gentleman, and that he was 
quite like a friend — such a smile as he had, and 
such a happy way with him. “Oh, my boy is 
fortunate, and the words I have prayed in church 
every Sunday for the widow and fatherless have 
been answered — that they have.” 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST 1 01 

It was with a light heart that Mrs. Press 
finished her work, hung the things out to dry, 
and then tidied up her kitchen and herself, and 
got tea ready. 

Jack was late in coming home ; he had been an 
errand to Cromer for her, for she had fallen short 
of starch, and it would be wanted the next day 
for the fine lace and handkerchiefs about which 
the Yicar’s sister was so particular. 

The tea had been brewing on the hob some 
time, and the potatoes boiled till they had to be 
taken off the fire, and still Jack did not come. 

Mrs. Press went to the door and looked out; 
she had to go to the top of the sandbank, covered 
with long grass before the cottage, before she 
could see the length of the irregular road where 
the cottages stood, to the turn leading it by the 
weather-beaten church and vicarage and the 
school-house. 

Again and again did Mrs. Press take up 
her position, with her hands shading her eyes 
from the bright western sunshine which sent slant- 
ing rays across the road, and still Jack did not 
come. 

She had often, in days past, stood on this point 
of observation, looking seaward wiih anxious 
eyes; now she had turned her back to the sea 


102 


MASTER MARTIN 


and was straining her eyes towards the Cromer 
road. 

Presently she heard a voice calling to her. 
“ What’s up, Mrs. Press, eh ? ” 

“I was watching for my Jack, that’s all.” 

“ He’ll be back fast enough. I wouldn’t worrit 
about him. He’s such a wonderful good boy, you 
know.” 

This was said with a little mocking laugh. 

Mrs. Press came down from the sandbank and 
replied, “Yes, you are right there ; my boy never 
gives me any trouble.” 

“ And you’ve got him taken on at the Hall, I 
find.” 

“ Who told you as much ? ” 

“W’^hy, the gentleman himself, who has been 
poking about here and asking for my Ted’s 
character at the school.” 

“Well, where’s the harm of that?” Mrs. Press 
said ; “ he asked about my boy too.” 

“Well, I bet, if your Jack gets to the Hall, he 
won’t stay there — a poor weak little mortal, who 
is a head shorter than he ought to be. There are 
some folks who say you’ve worked him too hard 
already, carrying them heavy washing-baskets, and 
they wonder a mother could make a slave of her 
boy, and kill him with work beyond his strength.” 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST IO3 

Poor Mrs. Press ! She had managed to keep 
her temper up to this point, but now her indig- 
nation rose against the woman who had dared to 
say she had made a slave of Jack — Jack, who 
was dearer to her than all the world ; Jack, for 
whose sake she had toiled, and of whom she was 
so proud. 

‘‘I tell you what, Mrs. Cross, you had better 
mind your own business and hold your tongue. 
I’ll thank you to make yourself scarce, for your 
room is more welcome than your company.” 

Mrs. Cross had always a retort ready. 

“ I am sure I never want to darken your door,” 
she said with a loud discordant laugh, as Mrs. 
Press went quickly to her cottage and took refuge 
there. 

All her pleasure in Jack’s success was for the 
time spoiled. She sat down and hot tears fell 
down her face, while she reproached herself for 
having indulged in angry words to Mrs. Cross. 
‘‘I shouldn’t have done it,” she said to herself. 
“Jack would say so, I know. Make him my 
slave! kill him with hard work! Oh, it is too 
bad to hear such a thing ; but there ! who cares 
for Mrs. Cross ? Every one knows what her tongue 
is. Poor thing, she has her troubles and they’ve 
soured her. Ted leads her a pretty life, and she 


104 


MASTER MARTIN 


has no comfort in her girls, a flighty set who 
dress up in finery and ” 

“ Oh, my dear ! ” she said, springing up as 
the well-known footsteps were heard and Jack 
appeared. “How late you are. IVe been in 
such a fidget.” 

“And crying, mother. Now what is that 
about ? ” 

“Never mind ; you’ve got the place at the Hall 
all right, — five shillings a week and your board. 
But what have you done to your face ? There’s a 
great bruise on it as big as a plover’s egg, and 
another on your forehead. What have you done 
to yourself ? ” 

J ack did not answer for a minute. He put the 
basket on the table with the little purchases, felt 
in his pocket for the change out of the shilling 
his mother had given him, and laid threepence by 
the basket. Then he said — 

“That’s the change all right, and I’ve not 
forgot anything.” 

“ But, Jack, your face! I must get some vinegar 
to put on the bruises. Have you been fighting ? 
I hope not.” 

“ Look here, mother. You aren’t to ask any 
questions, for I shan’t answer them. As to the 
bruises, they will soon get well, and ain’t of no 


A GLIMPSE OP THE PAST 10$ 

consequence ; so let’s have tea, for I’m very 
hungry and thirsty too.” 

“ But aren’t you glad you are to go to the Hall 
and look after the pony, and see that dear little 
gentleman every day ? ” 

“ Yes ; of course I’m glad.” 

“ Did you know the gentleman had been to 
engage you before I told you ? ” 

“ Yes, I heard it as I was coming along home.” 
“ Who ever told you ? ” 

“ Ted Cross.” 

“ And you and he had a fight ! 0 Jack ! ’* 


CHAPTEK X 


A NEW BROOM 

Jack Press arrived at the Hall in good time the 
next morning, and was looked at rather suspi- 
ciously by the coachman, who said — 

“Fighting, eh? That won’t do here, young- 
ster. Why, you’ve an eye as black as coal I How 
did it happen ? ” 

“ I’d rather not say, sir.” 

The coachman at the Hall was a very grand 
person in Jack’s eyes, and he treated him with 
due respect. 

“Eather not say? Well, when I ask a ques- 
tion I expect it to be answered. Do you hear? 
I am afraid you are a quarrelsome boy, and, as I 
said before, that won’t suit me. Come, look alive 
and swill out the pony’s stall, and then I’ll teach 
you how to rub him down, and give you a job in 
the harness-room. W^hat little hands you’ve got! 
I’m afraid you won’t suit the place, that I am.” 

This was very discouraging, and poor Jack’s 

io6 


A NEW BROOM 10/ 

head ached, and his eyelid was so swollen that he 
could scarcely see. 

“I’ll do my best to learn, sir, what you teach 
me. 

“Well, go and fill that bucket at the pump, 
and take that broom and swill out the stall. 

And then the coachman stumped off to a very 
good breakfast with the groom, and left poor Jack 
feeling very ignorant and very disconsolate. 

However, he pumped away till the bucket was 
full, and then opened the stable door and looked 
with awe at the two big carriage-horses, who 
turned their heads at his entrance, kicked out a 
hind-leg, and then took no further notice of him. 
The pony was in a smaller stable, leading out of 
the larger one, and Jack went up to Donald and 
tried to stroke him ; but Donald whisked Lis long 
tail and declined any further advances, then 
kicked his foot against the stall and pulled hard 
at the halter which was fastened to it. 

Jack took the broom and began to wash the 
stone paving, and worked at it with a will, and 
then went into the yard again to wait for further 
orders. He was very hungry, for it was a long 
run from Knapton, and the smell of fried bacon 
from the coachman’s house adjoining the stable 
was very appetising. He wished his head did 


MASTER MARTIN 


I08 

not throb so much. He sat down on a horse-block, 
and he began to think the coveted place, to look 
after Sir Theodore’s pony and attend him when 
he rode out on it, was not so delightful as he had 
expected. 

It seemed a long time before any one came 
into the yard. A large sandy cat crept along in 
the sunshine and made a futile spring at one of 
the fantail pigeons, which had come down from 
the dovecot expecting its breakfast. 

The big mastiff, Juno, came out of her kennel 
as far as her chain would allow her, shook her- 
self, took in the appearance of the stranger, gave 
a low, short bark, and then lay down with her 
nose on her paws, keeping an eye upon Jack all 
the time. 

Presently there was the welcome sound of foot- 
steps and a childish voice, “ Is the new boy 
come?” and Sir Theodore ran into the yard. 

Jack rose and said respectfully — 

“Yes, sir, I’m the boy who is come to look 
after the pony.” 

Theodore looked anxiously and rather curiously 
at Jack’s bruised and swollen eye, but, unlike the 
coachman, he did not make a remark on it at first. 

Robin Prescott, who now followed Theodore 
into the yard, was not so reticent. 


A NEW BROOM I Op 

“Why, youVe got a black eye! How was 
that ? Fighting, I suppose.” 

“ If you please, sir, I do not wish to talk about 
it. It will soon be well, and I can see to do my 
work.” 

“ I am afraid it must hurt you dreadfully. I 
will go and ask Nana — Longhurst, I mean, for 
I am not to call her Nana now — for some friar’s 
balsam.” 

Sir Theodore was running off to the house, 
when the coachman called Jack to come and get 
a bit of breakfast. 

“ What are you idling there for ? ” 

“ I did not know what to do next, sir.” 

“ You’ll know fast enough when you see your 
bread and butter before you. Come, look alive ; 
no loitering here.” 

This was the beginning of the much-coveted 
service at the Hall, and Jack began to wish Ted 
Cross had been chosen instead of him. It had 
made him a bitter enemy. After all, he thought 
it was not worth while, and he felt ready to cry 
instead of eating his breakfast. Every mouthful 
seemed to choke him. 

Mr. Short arrived soon after nine o’clock with 
a black bag and an air of great importance. 

The operation was to take place in the old 


no 


MASTER MARTIN 


nursery, and Longhurst had made the necessary 
preparations with a heavy heart. 

Sir Theodore seated himself on the high nur- 
sery-chair, and Mr. Short pinned a sheet round 
his little figure with a great deal of flourish. 

“ Quite comfortable, sir ? ” 

Yes, thank you.” 

And then out came the big scissors and a 
comb, and one by one the heavy golden locks 
fell on the sheet which was prepared to receive 
them. 

Longhurst turned away her head; she could 
not bear to see the devastation made by Mr. 
Short’s sharp scissors. 

“ Quite short, sir ? ” 

Yes, please,” Sir Theodore said. “ Make me 
look like a boy. You know I looked like a girl 
with my hair so long.” 

“It’s beautiful ’air. Many a lady would be 
proud of it. It’s got a wonderful curl, too.” 

“Yes,” Longhurst sighed, “ and all quite 
natural.” 

When Sir Theodore got down from his eleva- 
tion on the stool and went to the glass, he 
laughed and said — 

“ I do look a funny little boy. Master Martin 
wouldn’t know me, and Mra Curtis would not 


A NEW BROOM 


I I I 


call me like ‘Bubbles’ now. But I’m much 
obliged to you, Mr. Short, for turning me into a 
boy.” 

“You must have a silk handkerchief round 
your neck, my dear, or you’ll get a stiff neck.” 

“Oh, please not. Nurse, please! Kobin will 
laugh at me, and Mr. Mackenzie says I want 
hardening.” 

But Longhurst was determined, and a blue 
silk handkerchief was tied round the slender little 
throat, and knotted in front in a sailor’s bow. 

When Sir Theodore had run away to his lessons, 
Longhurst gathered up the precious curls and 
folded them in tissue paper, each curl in a sepa- 
rate fold, and the whole carefully wrapped up in 
thicker paper and put away in a box. “ It’s just 
as if he were dead,” his faithful friend said. “ I 
don’t know how to bear it.” 

With the shearing of Sir Theodore’s golden 
locks a new era dawned for him. The feeling of 
independence and being like other boys, and no 
longer the fear of being laughed at for being like 
a girl, gave him a proud sense of equality with 
Eobin Prescott. 

A change had also come over him. For the 
first time in his life he had felt he had a master 
in Mr. Mackenzie, and having, after the first 


I 12 


MASTER MARTIN 


week, found resistance to his authority was use- 
less, he had made no further attempt to set him 
at defiance. 

To all outward appearances Robin was very 
much improved, though Mr. Mackenzie kept a 
watchful eye on him, and did not feel that per- 
fect confidence in him which he did in Theo- 
dore. It was as Mrs. Longhurst said, “ You had 
to put on spectacles to find out his faults, for he 
was as good as gold.” 

The two boys took long expeditions with 
Donald. Jack had settled into his place, and 
bore out the good character which had been given 
him, and won favour with the coachman and 
groom, as he saved them much of their work, and 
did theirs and his own also without grumbling. 

“A willing boy” was the coachman’s opinion 
of Jack, expressed to Mrs. Longhurst when she 
came sometimes into the stable-yard to see the 
boys start for their ride. 

Blackberry-time had come, and there are never 
any blackberries to equal those which are gathered 
in Norfolk lanes. So large and juicy, and grow- 
ing in such profusion and large clusters on the 
topmost branches of the brambles. 

One lovely September afternoon Sir Theodore 
and Robin went into the stable-yard as usual to 


A NEW BROOM 


II3 

tell Jack to saddle Donald, when they found he 
had cast a shoe, and that there could be no ride 
till Jack had taken him to the blacksmith’s at 
Knapton. 

“Never mind,” Robin said; “let us ask Mr. 
Mackenzie to let us go and pick blackberries by 
ourselves. We can get plenty in the lane leading 
down to Sherringham.” 

The two boys raced off, to find their tutor in 
the schoolroom talking to Mr. Harrison, who had 
just arrived from Norwich. 

Mr. Harrison gave each of the boys a nod and 
said — 

“Well, how are you getting on, and how often 
has Mr. Mackenzie had to birch you since I was 
here last ? ” 

“We are never birched, sir,” Sir Theodore said 
seriously, “ never.” 

“Ah! I must see about that,” Mr. Harrison 
said. “I’m afraid Mr. Mackenzie is not half 
strict enough.” 

“He is not strict, sir; he is awfully kind.” 

Robin gave Theodore a nudge with his elbow, 
and whispered, “ Speak up, and ask if we may go.” 

“ Please, sir, Donald has cast a shoe. May we 
two go alone and get blackberries in the Sher- 

ringham Lane ? I promised Master Martin I 

H 


MASTER MARTIN 


II4 

would pick Him a lot, for he can’t reach up to 
gather any for himself.” 

“ Shut up,” Kobin whispered again. 

“Well, I will let you go on one condition — 
that by Eobin’s watch you are back again here 
by half-past four; that gives you two hours.” 

“ Of course we shall be back by then, sir.” 

“Well, be off then, and mind you get enough 
blackberries to make a pie for me,” Mr. Mac- 
kenzie said. 

When the boys were gone, Mr. Harrison said — 

“You have done wonders with those boys, 
Mackenzie. I don’t think any one who had the 
care of Prescott before ever dared trust him to 
do as he was bid.” 

You see, I do trust him, and that’s the secret 
of making him trustworthy.” 

“ Ah ! you may make that answer, but I have 
known it fail. What a quaint little fellow Sir 
Theodore is. You have made a boy of him, and 
he will be fit to go to school in another year.” 

“ I hope so ; but he is not strong physically, 
and very sensitive, poor little fellow. He has 
been happy ever since the day he got rid of his 
curls, and has no longer the fear of being laughed 
at for being like a girl.” 

“ Lady Chamberlayne seems perfectly satisfied 


A NEW BROOM II5 

with your management of the boy, and I am sure 
that is a pretty feather for you.” 

The two boys were delighted to be trusted to 
go blackberrying by themselves. 

They set off running, with the empty baskets 
slung over their shoulders — two big ones and a 
little one — the basket which Theodore had bought 
in the spring from Mrs. Curtis, and which had 
seen good service on the beach. 

All in this basket are for Master Martin,” he 
said. “ Do get me some very big ones for him, 
Eob.” 

“ I’ll see about it. I say, how hot it is ! and 
there’s a black cloud over there.” 

But they forgot the heat and the black cloud 
when they got into the lane, and big blackberries 
hung in tempting clusters at the top of the high 
hedge. 

Presently a low mutter of thunder made Theo- 
dore say — 

“ That’s thunder, Eob. I think we had better 
go home.” 

“ Nonsense ! I am not going if you are.” 

Theodore said no more, but a flash of lightning 
came full in his face. 

“I don’t like being out in a storm, Eob; dc 
come. If we go across the common past Master 


MASTER MARTIN 


Il6 

Martin’s house, we shall soon get home. Oh, 
there’s another flash ! Please come.” 

“ All right ! ” Robin said, letting himself down 
from the top of the bank. “ Come on ; through 
that gate ; there’s a path there.” 

Theodore struggled bravely on through the 
narrow footpaths between the furze-bushes, which 
scratched him and pricked him, and made him 
call out, ‘'Stop, Rob, for me; I can’t get on so 
fast.” . 

A splash of rain now came against Theodore’s 
face and a peal of thunder rolled overhead. 

Robin shouted, “Make haste, make haste, 
Theo,” and went on himself at a far quicker pace 
than his companion. 

Presently the rain fell in a deluge, the storm 
closed in around them, and peal after peal of 
thunder sounded like volleys of cannon. Half 
blinded with rain and hail, Theodore lost the 
track and went blundering on, till suddenly he 
lost his footing and rolled down into one of those 
sudden dips in the moorland which come upon 
the unwary without any warning. Down the 
poor child rolled, till he found himself at the 
bottom of a steep incline, and for a minute was 
stunned by the fall. 


CHAPTER XI 

MASTER martin's SEARCH 

Frightened and drenched to the skin, Theodore 
found himself carried up the steps of a van, and 
a woman's voice said, “ Here, my pretty darling, 
let me take off your wet things, or you’ll get your 
death of cold.” 

She then began to undress Theodore, though 
he said, “I would rather you did not take off 
all my things, please ; and will you tell me where 
lam?” 

He looked round and saw a little fire burning 
in the corner, and a quantity of tin pots and 
pans and skewers hanging up on the pegs round 
the house on wheels. Presently they began to 
shake and jingle, and then there was a sound of 
creaking and jolting, and a man’s voice shouting 
while the rain still fell in torrents on the roof, 
and the thunder, although now distant, rolled 
continuously. 

“ Where am I going ? ” Theodore asked. 


Il8 MASTER MARTIN 

“ I am taking of you home, if you’ll tell me 
where you live ? ” 

“lam Sir Theodore Ohamberlayne, of Knapton 
Hall. It is quite near. It won’t take you long 
to get there, though this van goes very slowly.” 

“Well, we can’t move fast in weather like this. 
I’ll give you a cup of tea and cover you with a 
blanket, and you’ll get a nice nap.” 

Theodore’s usual politeness made him drink the 
tea which was poured from a brown earthenware 
pot standing on the hob by the fire. It was 
very nasty, and though Theodore made desperate 
efforts, he could only take two or three gulps. 

“ Sup it down, my dearie — see. I’ll put sum- 
mut sweet in it,” and the woman poured out of 
a little black bottle a few drops into the cup of 
tea. “ There, taste again ; its nicer now.” 

She held the cup to Theodore’s lips, and he felt 
obliged to take another gulp. Then she laid him 
down on the mattress, covered him with a rug, 
and told him to lie quiet while she dried his 
things, and by that time he would be at home. 

Theodore began to be very sleepy, and though 
he tried hard to keep his eyes open, the lids 
would insist on dropping over them, and very 
soon he was wrapped in a deep slumber. 

Meanwhile there was great anxiety at the Hall 


MASTER martin's SEARCH I 1 9 

about the two little boys. Mr. Mackenzie watched 
at the hall-door for some time, expecting to see 
them return every minute, while poor Longhurst 
walked up and down in great distress, shielding 
her eyes from the lightning, and putting her 
hands over her ears as the thunder rolled over- 
head. 

“ Such a storm, and what hail ! ” she exclaimed. 
‘‘ 0 sir, what shall we do ? ” 

Mr. Mackenzie did not answer. He took an 
overcoat from the stand in the hall, pulled a cap 
over his eyes, and went out into the pouring 
rain. 

“ They can’t be far off,” he thought, " if they 
only went to Sherringliam Lane ; and I know 
Theodore would do as I bid him, unless the other 
boy persuaded him to go farther.” 

Unmindful of the raging storm, Mr. Mackenzie 
strode along the avenue, and just at the gate met 
Kobin, who was scared by the lightning, and said 
as he scampered past, “ Theodore is behind, sir ; 
he can’t be far off.” 

“ Stop! ” Mr. Mackenzie said, with quick strides 
overtaking Kobin. “ What do you mean by leaving 
Sir Theodore ? Where is he ? ” 

“ He — he — can’t be far off. I came across the 
moor, and shouted to him to follow — Oh ! ” as 


120 


MASTER MARTIN 


another ray of vivid lightning flashed across the 
avenue, and cast a lurid light on the boy s hot face. 

“Well, run on, and I must look for Sir 
Theodore.” 

Though half-blinded by hail, and drenched with 
the deluge of rain which fell as it ceased, Mr. 
Mackenzie pushed on, hoping every minute to 
meet Theodore. Suddenly a thought struck him, 
“ He is sheltering in Master Martin’s cottage.” 

So he turned towards the well-known path 
to the old man’s hut, instead of making for 
Sherringham Lane. Master Martin was crouch- 
ing in a remote corner of his little dark abode 
when Mr. Mackenzie took the palings at one 
bound, and shouted, “ Is any one here ? ” 

There was no answer, and pushing open the 
door and stooping — or his head would have been 
struck by the low roof — he marched into the 
hut. 

“ Get out ! ” Master Martin said. “ What do 
you mean by coming in like that ? ” 

“I mean this, has Sir Theodore Chamberlayne 
been here ? — is he here ? ” 

“ No, he ain’t.” 

“We have lost him ; he must be out in this 
storm.” 

“ Out in this storm ? ” Master Martin said, his 


MASTER martin's SEARCH I2I 

tone changing to one of real concern. “ Lor, 
how’s that ? ” 

“ I cannot imagine what has become of him. 
I must go on and try to find him.” 

“ Lost ! lost ! pretty creature ! ” Master Martin 
said. “ He’ll be struck with lightning ; he’ll be 
blinded; he’ll be killed p’raps, and then — why 
then, I shall never live long after him.’^ 

Mr. Mackenzie did not wait to hear more than 
the first exclamations of distress. He pushed 
on, and at the turn of Sherringham Lane he met 
Jack galloping home from Knapton on Donald’s 
back. 

“ Stop ! ” Mr. Mackenzie shouted. 

Jack pulled up Donald, who, being near home, 
resented it, and did his best to unseat Jack. 

“ Eide him to the stables,” Mr. Mackenzie said, 
“and come back to Sherringham Lane. Sir 
Theodore is lost.” 

Jack obeyed instantly, and in a very short time 
had joined Mr. Mackenzie. 

Neither Jack nor the tutor said much. 

The storm was abating, but the rain still fell 
heavily. In Sherringham Lane there was no 
trace of Theodore, except that in one place there 
was a quantity of blackberries scattered on the 
grass under the hedge. Presently Jack said — 


122 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ There is a path through the furze across the 
moor, sir. Perhaps they went that way. It 
would be a short cut to the Hall, shorter than 
by the road.” 

Mr. Mackenzie caught at the idea, and he was 
soon striding along the narrow track between the 
furze-bushes, and looking right and left for some 
sign of the lost child. 

They came to the dip in the moor where poor 
little Theodore had rolled down, and here Mr. 
Mackenzie heard a shout from Jack. 

‘‘ Here, sir ! here is the little basket he always 
took about with him ; it’s all stained with black- 
berries ; they must have been this way.” 

Mr. Mackenzie was eagerly looking down into 
the hollow, and said — 

“It looks as if a gipsy’s van had been down 
there. There is the mark of wheels — and look, 
here’s an old tin saucepan.” 

“ There’s often gipsies and tramps, sir, about in 
these hollows, but I’ve not seen one of late, for 
the vans are all going into the towns now. But 
I remember, sir, we did meet one yesterday, 
when we were out with Donald on the Knapton 
road, and the woman hallooed at us to tell our 
fortunes.” 

Mr. Mackenzie had sprung down into the 


MASTER martin’s SEARCH 1 23 

hollow, and was looking at the marks the wheels 
had left, and the print of the horse’s hoofs. 

“They are quite fresh,” he said, “the van 
must have been here to-day. We must try to 
find out. Sir Theodore’s basket shows the boys 
came this way. I must go to the police-station 
at Sherringham, and search must be made all over 
the neighbourhood. So, back to the Hall, Jack, 
and ask Master Prescott if he saw a gipsy’s van 
on the moor.” 

“Yes, sir,” Jack said, and he was off again, 
looking right and left as he went, in the hope of 
seeing some trace of Sir Theodore, half hoping 
that when he reached the Hall he should find 
Sir Theodore safely at home. 

But by poor Longhurst’s face, as she stood at 
the door, a face of utter distress and despair, he 
knew the lost child had not returned. 

Poor Nurse scolded Eobin and wept by turns. 

“You should never have left the child and 
run home without him. You, a big boy, and my 
darling only a delicate little child.” 

Eobin stood still in his wet clothes, and sud- 
denly Longhurst snatched hold of him, drove 
him upstairs, saying she did not want to have 
him to nurse with inflammation of the lungs, and 
insisted on his changing his wet suit and stockings. 


124 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ I didn’t leave him,” he repeated. ** I thought 
he was following me. It was not my fault.” 

This was too much for Longhurst. She shook 
Robin violently, saying — 

“Whose fault was it, then, I should like to 
know?” and returned to her watch in the hall, 
where all the servants were collected. 

So far the news had been kept from Lady 
Ohamberlayne. She was always very much upset 
in a thunder-storm, and her maid was with her 
in her moming-room, doing her best to quiet 
her nerves by smelling-salts and doses of a 
sedative medicine, which had the effect of sending 
her at last into a doze. 

To keep the terrible anxiety of the household 
from Sir Theodore’s grandmother was the aim of 
every one concerned, and if he came back, she 
never need know that he had been lost. 

Jack and the groom and the gardener all set 
out to scour the country, and to examine every 
little hollow and uneven place in the moor. 

The short autumn day closed in, and still there 
was no news of Sir Theodore. 

In his search Jack came upon Master Martin, 
who took very little heed of him, but murmured 
to himself more than to Jack — 

“ I am seeking for the child — the pretty child 


MASTER martin’s SEARCH 12$ 

— I’ll seek till I find him.” Then he trudged away 
over the moor, calling, in his thin, querulous voice, 
“ Where are you, my little dear ? where are you ? 
Poor old Martin is well-nigh broken-hearted about 
you ; where are you ? ” 

There was no answer in the gathering twi- 
light except the distant boom of the waves on 
Knapton . beach, and the mutter of the thunder 
as the storm ceased, and a dull, sullen calm 
followed it. 

Master Martin trudged on; he never thought 
of fatigue, or how his little crooked legs ached, 
nor how his bent back seemed ready to break. 
On and on he went. Once he came upon Mr. 
Mackenzie and the policeman — once upon the 
groom and gardener. 

“Whatever are you about here, Master Martin?” 
the gardener asked him. And still it was the 
same answer — 

“lam seeking the lost child.” 

“You’ll be lost yourself as night comes on; 
you had best go back to your hut. Master 
Martin.” 

“You mind your own business. I’m seeking 
the child — the dear, pretty child ! ” 

“Poor old chap! he is quite doity; he ain’t 
likely to find Sir Theodore.” 


126 


MASTER MARTIN 


Master Martin never faltered in his search ; he 
walked on, and as the twilight faded and the 
night closed in, he still persisted in his search. 
He was in a lane now leading off in the direction 
of Aylsham — a deep, dark lane with high hedges 
on either side. 

Suddenly he came to a stop ; right before him 
he saw a light — a tiny flickering light — which 
came from a dark object just in front of him. 
He crept cautiously on by the hedge, and getting 
closer to the light, saw it came from a van. A 
lurcher dog chained beneath it gave a low growl, 
and a horse tethered to a gate by which he was 
lying snorted and made a sudden movement. 
Presently the door of the van opened and a 
woman’s head was thrust out, but she closed it 
again immediately, though not before Master 
Martin had heard a child’s low, sad cry. His 
ears were sharp, and he squatted down as close 
to the van as he dared go, and listened ! But the 
crying ceased, the light which had shone through 
the little opening of the window flickered and 
went out. 

Master Martin knew very well what the life 
of houses on wheels was. He had, as we know, 
passed his boyhood in a show, and by a fall from 
a trapeze had so injured himself that his poor 


MASTER MARTIN'S SEARCH 12/ 

distorted figure was the result. He knew that 
the inhabitants of vans generally slept soundly 
after heavy suppers, washed down by rum and gin, 
and he felt that if that cry of childish distress 
was, as he half believed. Sir Theodore’s, he had 
found him ! 

He was too utterly exhausted to move for some 
time, but he crawled as close to the van as he 
dared, and listened intently. 

Loud snores soon told that the occupants were 
asleep, and then a little voice fell on his ear, 
“ Oh, I do want to go home ; please, dear 
Heavenly Father, send some one to take me 
home — pray, please do ? ” 

Yes, there could be no doubt now that the 
voice was Sir Theodore’s. “ So I have found him 
— I have found him, and they that have sought 
him high and low have never found him. I — 
poor old Martin — have found the lost child ! ” 
But how to get him out was the puzzle. 

The stars looked down from the dark blue sky 
on the poor old man with loving eyes, and they 
seemed to inspire him with courage and hope. 
He crept to the top step of the van, and putting 
his mouth close to the door he whispered, “ Are 
you here, my pretty boy, ’cause I’ve come to find 
you. I’m old Martin.” 


128 


MASTER MARTIN 


Master Martin’s heart beat loud with anxious 
hope and fear waiting for an answer. Then there 
was a gentle rustle inside, and the sweet voice 
whispered, though nearly choked wtih sobs — 

“ Yes, yes, Master Martin, I’m here.” 


CHAPTER XII 

RESTORED 

“ Open the door, my pretty one — gently, now ! ” 

“ I am afraid ; she’ll wake perhaps.” 

Master Martin paused and listened. “ Not she, 
not she — she^s sound with drink ; lift the latch, 
my dear — lift the latch.” 

With trembling fingers Sir Theodore obeyed. 
The door opened a very little way, then farther, 
and the child crept through, and down the steps 
with his bare feet, to feel his hand was clasped 
in Master Martin’s. 

“ Don’t ’ee speak, but come along. I knows 
the way.” 

Poor little Theodore pattered along through 
mud and mire, holding fast to Master Martin’s 
hand. His clothes had all been taken off, and 
he was in the ragged blue shirt in which he had 
been dressed before he went into that long 
dreamy sleep. He was shivering with cold, and 
his teeth chattered in his head, but he kept 

129 j 


130 


MASTER MARTIN 


bravely on as Master Martin trudged along mur- 
muring to himself, “ I’ve found him ; I’ve found 
him, thank God.” 

When they had gone for more than two miles 
in this way, the dawn began to break ; the morn- 
ing star shining in the eastern sky had inspired 
the poor little wayfarer with hope. 

Look, look, Master Martin, there’s the bright 
morning star. I’ve learned a verse about it in 
my little text-book Nana gave me — Oh dear • 
oh dear ! and with the name of his old friend the 
long pent-up tears broke forth. 

“ 0 Master Martin, I can’t help it. I must 
cry just a little. You are so kind — but — but I 
can’t help it.” 

“No, no, my pretty one, you can’t help it. 
Lor, I’ve taken a wrong turn, and we are going 
into Knapton.” 

Yes, they were just at the entrance of the 
village, and now in the strengthening light they 
saw another van drawn aside in an open bit of 
common where a flock of geese showed like white 
spectres, and, startled from his slumbers, the 
gander began to hiss and flap his wings, and 
utter notes of warning to his wife and children. 
The cackling and fluster among the geese awoke 
the inhabitants of this house on wheels. The 


RESTORED 


I3I 

door opened, and a liead in a large nightcap, as 
white as the wings of the gander as he flapped 
them and ga-gaed angrily, was thrust out. 

‘‘Who is there?’* a voice asked — a pleasant, 
cheery voice, which made Master Martin give a 
little cry of joy. 

“Oh, lor, if it isn’t Mrs. Curtis. Hi! Mrs. 
Curtis, hi ! ” 

“Is that you. Master Martin. Whatever are 
you about at this time in the morning ? ” 

Who shall tell the surprise of Mrs. Curtis as a 
little shivering figure climbed up the steps of the 
van, and said, “ Oh, Mrs. Broome, Mrs. Broome, 
take me in. I am so cold, and so — so — tired ; ” 
and then Theodore was clasped in Mrs. Curtis’s 
arms, and pressed close to her warm capacious 
breast, where a true and tender womanly heart 
beat with mingled sorrow and gladness. 

Mrs. Curtis hastily awoke her husband, and 
bid him dress himself and run an errand as fast 
as his legs could carry him to the Hall. Mr. 
Curtis was very droswy, and did not hurry him- 
self, while his wife kindled the fire in the little 
stove, and wrapped poor shivering Theodore in a 
blanket, and tucked him up in the large chair where 
Mrs. Curtis was wont to take a nap when there 
was no business going on as the van rumbled 
through unfrequented lanes and by-ways. 


132 


MASTER MARTIN 


Mrs. Curtis saw it was useless to question the 
poor, tired child, whose courage had quite broken 
down, and he continued to sob bitterly from cold 
and fatigue. Mrs. Curtis went to a cupboard and 
took out a large tin box, which she unlocked, and 
brushing away some sprigs of lavender, she shook 
out a little old-fashioned frock and jacket of 
blue merino, and kissing it, said, “ He shall have 
my Bertie’s frock, that he shall, and his socks 
and bootikins, and all his clothes, which I never 
thought to see put on any child again.” 

A few quiet tears rolled down Mrs. Curtis’s 
rosy cheeks as she turned a chair to the fire, 
and hung the little old garments there to be 
aired. 

At this moment Mr. Curtis came out of the 
little bedroom, which was partitioned from the 
other by a screen covered with paper. “Bubbles ” 
swung up and down as Mr. Curtis, not in a very 
serene temper, closed the rickety door, and 
said — 

“Now you’ve got me up, what am I to 
do?” 

“ Don’t be stupid, Tim. Kun to the Hall and 
say Sir Theodore is safe here, and that Master 
Martin brought him. By-the-bye, where is 
Master Martin ?” 


RESTORED 1 3 3 

The name roused Theodore from an uneasy 
doze, and he said — 

‘‘I want to see Master Martin, please. He 
got me away from those wicked people who took 
off all my things — and — and ” 

“ Who were they, my pretty one ? ” 

“I don’t know. It was a little house like 
yours, Mrs. Broome, but oh ! so nasty and dirty, 
and 

Mrs. Curtis slapped her hand on the table 
with such vehemence that the work-basket full 
of Tim’s stockings to be mended turned over, 
and the contents rolled on the floor in every 
direction. 

“ It was these rascally gipsy tramps. I see it 
now ! I see it now ! They stole this precious child 
to get a reward. The police must be told — but 
for any sake, Tim, don’t stand staring there, 
but stir your stumps for once, can’t you ? ” 

Mr. Curtis departed at last, a somewhat un- 
willing messenger, and then Mrs. Curtis put a 
little kettle on the fire, and prepared some tea 
for Theodore. 

His shivering was followed by burning heat, 
and he said he had a bad pain in his head. He 
roused himself to some extent when Mrs. Curtis 
proceeded to dress him in the little garments, 


134 


MASTER MARTIN 


which had been lying useless for so many years. 
A quaint little figure Sir Theodore looked when 
his toilet was complete, and he was for the time 
amused with the low-cut frock aud short sleeves 
of the blue merino. The jacket was rather 
small for him, but it was fastened with big 
pearl buttons, and a silk handkerchief was tied 
round his neck to hide deficiencies. 

Meanwhile Bubbles, at the door, continued 
his contemplation of the soap-bubbles, his sweet 
baby-face, under its shadowing curls, presenting 
a resemblance to those of the little boy, whose 
cheeks were crimson and his blue eyes unnatu- 
rally bright. 

“You are the living picture of my Bertie — 
my Bubbles — my lost darling,” Mrs. Curtis said, 
when she had finished dressing Sir Theodore, 
and, taking him on her lap, she crooned over 
him with maternal tenderness. Then she placed 
him once more in the chair, and disappeared to 
make herself, as she said, “ decent ” before the 
gentry arrived. 

“Where is Master Martin? I want Master 
Martin — he was so kind to me.” 

Ah ! where was Master Martin ? Assured of 
the child’s safety, he waited for no words of 
thanks, but set off to the Hall, to carry the 



In thk House on Wheels.— P aye 134 







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RESTORED 1 3 5 

glad news to those who had passed a night of 
watching and distress. 

Love quickened those poor, little, crooked legs 
to get over the ground, and Master Martin 
plodded wearily on, murmuring to himself as 
he went — 

“ He is safe — he is safe — the pretty, innocent 
child ! If he had been stolen by them folks it 
might have been my story over again. Well, 
well — IVe found him — IVe found him.” 

Mr. Mackenzie had just returned from another 
futile search, and had telegraphed to the chief- 
constable at Norwich, and to the stations at the 
intermediate towns, that Sir Theodore Cham- 
berlayne was lost, and a large reward was offered 
to any one who could give information about 
him. 

The doctor had been sent for in the night 
to Lady Chamberlayne, who was really ill with 
distress and anxiety, and he was talking to Mr. 
Mackenzie in the hall when a poor, misshapen 
little figure drew near along the drive. 

Mr. Mackenzie hastened towards him — 

‘‘Have you news ? — have you brought news ? ” 
he asked almost sharply, from the fear he had 
that the answer might be in the negative. “ Speak ! 
have you heard anything of Sir Theodore ? ” 


MASTER MARTIN 


136 

But Master Martin trudged along without a 
word, passed Mr. Mackenzie, and entirely ig- 
nored the doctor’s presence. 

“I want the Nurse,” he said. "She loved 
him.” 

Then he squatted down on the steps before 
the door, and buried his face in his hands, his 
elbows resting on his knees. 

“ Call Longhurst instantly,” Mr. Mackenzie 
said; “this old man will not tell us what has 
happened.” 

Longhurst soon came, her eyes red with cry- 
ing. She put her hand on Master Martin’s 
shoulder, and said — 

“Tell us what you know — tell us what you 
know.” 

Master Martin raised his head and answered — 

“The gipsy tramps had got hold of him. I 
found him, and took him to Mrs. Curtis — she 
that has the basket-van. I came here to tell 
you the child is safe. Now I may go.” 

No persuasion availed. Master Martin raised 
himself with evident difficulty, and went off to his 
hut. He looked back once, stopped, and said — 

“Give my love to the pretty child when he 
comes, and say old Martin loves him, and bids 
him good-bye. No, no; I won’t stay here,” he 


RESTOBED 


137 

said, as Mr. Mackenzie tried to stop him. No, 
no ; this is no place for the likes of me ; no, no. 
IVe found him, the pretty child ; that’s enough — 
that’s enough.” 

It was a week afterwards that Longhurst went 
to Master Martin’s hut. 

‘‘I’ve come to fetch you to see Sir Theodore, 
Master Martin. He does nothing but cry out 
for you. He is very ill; he has had a high 
fever, and he is now so weak; but he says he 
wants you. You must come.” 

“No. Tell him I can’t come,” was the reply, 
and the face turned up to Mrs. Longhurst was 
so haggard and pallid, and there was such a 
weird look in the big prominent eyes, that Mrs. 
Longhurst was frightened. 

“ Oh, do ’ee come ! ” she entreated, “ for the 
child may die, and then how would you feel ? ” 

“ Die ! die ! It’s I that’s agoing to die, not 
the pretty, innocent child — not he ! ” 

“ But the doctors say he is so weak. So — 
oh ! Master Martin, do ’ee come along with me. 

You’ll be sorry if — if ” Longhurst could not 

finish the sentence. 

The old man took his stick, nodded his head 
by way of assent, and tottered along by Long- 


MASTER MARTIN 


138 

hurst’s side. Once she put out her hand as if 
to steady him, but he drew away from her, and 
continued his uneven, faltering steps. 

Longhurst considerately took him in by the 
kitchen entrance, and offered him a glass of 
wine. 

“ No, no ; water, water ! ” 

They gave him some water, and then he said — 

“ Show the way.” 

To get up the stairs was a long and painful 
business — Master Martin had to rest so many 
times. At last they were at the door of Theo- 
dore’s room. Here Master Martin stopped. 

“ Turn ’em all out. Leave me alone with the 
child. Do you hear ? ” 

“ All but me ; you won’t mind me,” Longhurst 
said. 

“No, no; you love him — you love him. No- 
body else, mind ! ” 

Longhurst did as he wished. The hospital 
nurse, and the doctor and Mr. Mackenzie, all 
left the room when poor Master Martin tottered 
into it. 

“ 0 Master Martin, Master Martin ! ” Theodore 
said, “ I did so wish to see you. Kiss me. Master 
Martin.” 

The old man stood gazing down at the child 


RESTORED 1 39 

with his large eyes turned up to him, and his 
little white hand stretched out to take his. 

“You found me when I was lost, Master 
Martin ; you have been ever so kind to me. I 
can’t talk much. I feel as if — as if I were run- 
ning uphill when I try; but I hope you’ll kiss 
me. Master Martin, and — you are to have a nice 
cottage built for you. My Grannie says so — to 
show how grateful she is to you for finding me. 
She has promised, if I die, to do it.” 

Master Martin stood like one in a dream. All 
the better part of his nature, that had slumbered 
for years, and all the sweetness which had been, 
as it were, crushed out by harsh treatment and 
the cruel jests of those who laughed at his crooked 
legs and queer appearance, had awoke when 
Theodore had gone to him with a message of 
good-will and kindness. 

He took the little hand in his, and covered it 
with kisses, murmuring — 

“ Die ! you mustn’t die, you dear little child. 
I’m going to die instead of you. Not you ; not 
you. God will spare you and take me. I’ve 
been thinking of Him of late ; and you made me 
think of Him. And I ain’t afraid to die — no, 
no. He will forgive me and take me to heaven, 
won’t He?” 


140 


MASTER MARTIN 


“ Yes, yes,” Theodore said faintly, “ for Christ’s 
sake, for Christ’s sake, Master Martin.” 

The child closed his eyes, and Longhurst com- 
ing to Master Martin, put her hand in his arm 
and led him away. 

Two days later Longhurst went to the hut to 
tell Master Martin Sir Theodore was better, and 
the doctors said he would live and get well in 
time. She found the door shut. She opened it 
gently, and went in. 

“ Master Martin ! ” she said, “ Master Martin ! 
Sir Theodore sends you his love, and he is much 
better.” 

But Master Martin did not answer. He was 
sitting in his chair, with his head on his hands, 
and by his side, on the rickety table, a picture 
Theodore had given him, with other little gifts, 
all scattered round him as he sat — a shell-box, a 
little text-book, a comforter that Longhurst had 
knitted for him, and the picture in a neat black 
frame — the shepherd with the sheep, and under it 
was printed — 

“ify sheep know My voices and they follow 

Her 

Master Martin had heard the voice, and had 
followed, where those that come to Him are in no 
wise cast out. 


RESTORED 


I41 

Sir Theodore Chamberlayne is now a schoolboy, 
and full of life and spirit. But on his return 
with Robin Prescott for his holidays, one of his 
first visits is to the little graveyard by the sea, 
where a plain stone cross, at the head of a grassy 
mound, has this inscription — 

IN MEMORY OF 

MASTER MARTIN 

■BBOTED BT HIS FBIBND 

SIR THEODORE CHAMBERLAYNE 

OF KNAPTON HALL. 

There could be no date of age, and no other 
name, for no one knew either. But there are 
many in the village who can tell the story of 
Master Martin’s love for Sir Theodore, and of the 
softening influence which the child’s pity and 
sympathy had upon the poor irascible old man, 
who had found in him a friend. 

A pretty cottage now stands on the site of the 
little hut; and here, now her journeys hither 
and thither with baskets and brooms are over, 
Mrs. Curtis lives with her somewhat indolent 
husband. 

“ Bubbles ” has a prominent place on the wall 


MASTER MARTIN 


142 

abov6 the mantel-shelf ; and when Sir Theodore 
rushes in to pay his old friend a visit, she always 
repeats that he was the living image of her 
Bertie and of “Bubbles,” especially when he 
was dressed in the old blue merino frock and 
jacket. 

Mrs. Curtis takes in what she calls fine washing, 
and does needlework for Longhurst and the upper 
servants at the Hall, and is busy as a bee and as 
good-natured as ever. Perhaps that is why she 
is increasing in size as she increases in years, and 
sometimes finds her breath rather short as she 
walks up to the Hall ! 

Jack is now footman there, and has fully 
carried out the good character given him when he 
was taken on as attendant to the young gentle- 
men in their rides. 

Mr. Mackenzie is one of the masters at the 
public school, for which he had successfully pre- 
pared Sir Theodore and Robin Prescott, and is 
very often at the Hall during the vacation. 

A life of happiness and usefulness lies before 
Sir Theodore Ohamberlayne. He has not lost 
the sympathy of his childhood for all that is 
sad and suffering and unattractive. The crippled 
and helpless and cross-grained like Master Martin 
will, if he fulfils the promise of his boyhood. 


RESTORED 


143 


liave reason to call him their best friend, and to 
thank him for awakening in them the longing 
and desire for better things. 

And so we say good-bye to Sir Theodore 
Chamberlayne of Knapton Hall. 


THE END 


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